


Hidden In Plain Sight

by likeamadonna



Category: U2
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-18
Updated: 2016-05-28
Packaged: 2018-05-21 13:09:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 33,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6052774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/likeamadonna/pseuds/likeamadonna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An Oral History of Bono and the Edge</p><p>After 25 years, Bono and the Edge finally come out. Set in mid-2016 (the near future when this was written), this is a fake Rolling Stone-style interview with U2 and various family members, friends, and associates.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Lede

**Author's Note:**

> This is the introduction of a multi-chapter, extended fake interview. Rolling Stone has presented "oral histories" of various stars and events, where the main players tell the story in their own words along with some commentary from the article's author. I may include a sidebar or two as well. AO3 will not let me include images here, but I'll provide links. And you'll be able to see them on my tumblr, where I am likeamadonnau2.

[Click here for fake magazine cover](http://imgur.com/k2cQ3Xu)

 

**Hidden In Plain Sight: An Oral History of Bono and the Edge**

Elle A. Maddon

Rolling Stone Magazine

 

\----

 

  
" _It's the gayest thing you've ever seen, isn't it?"_

  
_Bono grins wickedly at the gilded Louis XV loveseat he and the Edge are sharing. Both are dressed in what constitutes "summer casual" for them: Edge in jeans and a t-shirt with an enigmatic geometric design, and Bono in head-to-toe black, including a pair of truly objectionable sandals. Blue sunglasses. His hair is the color and shape of an overbaked croissant._

  
_Bono's fingers caress the baby blue silk embroidered with lilacs. "A gift from Elton John!" he cackles as Edge doubles over with laughter and clutches his beanie with both hands._

  
_The loveseat is indeed the gayest thing I have ever seen. And it's completely incongruous in their otherwise minimalist, state-of-the-art villa on the French Riviera. "The lilacs alone kill me," Bono sighs, catching his breath. He gazes at Edge for a moment, and then they turn to me._

  
_"You must be wondering why we brought you here," Edge says sympathetically._

  
_In a word, yes. U2 are currently in the off-season and have no tour to promote. Their upcoming album Songs of Experience is scheduled to be released in five months. For the first time ever, the band has finished a project ahead of its deadline. Between now and then, one assumes the group will continue to enjoy their idyllic extended holiday in the south of France (punctuated by meetings with various heads of state)._

  
_"We've been keeping an important secret for nearly twenty-five years," Bono whispers conspiratorially while sliding his knight across the chess board that sits on a nearby coffee table. "Your move, Edge."_

  
_Edge looks at me wearily. "I have never given a single fuck about chess," he says._

  
_"The things you do for me."_

  
_"Twenty-five years?" I ask, wondering what happened in 1991._

  
_Over the course of the afternoon, they will tell me._

  
_What follows is an oral history of Bono and the Edge in their own words, along with those of their friends, family, colleagues, and business associates._

\----- 

 **BONO** (singer, U2): Doesn't Rolling Stone usually reserve something like this for people who are dead?

  
**EDGE** (guitarist, U2): You know, you're right. Attention, readers: we are not dead.

  
**BONO:** We are in fact thriving. And fair warning: you will need to spend the next few months preparing yourselves for our new record and tour. These songs, my god, and this man, _this man_ has done the most important work of his storied career. He is the most incred--

  
**EDGE:** Maybe we should start at the beginning.

  
**BONO:** _the most incredible and gifted guitarist of his generation there I'm done_

  
**EDGE:** I feel like I've known you forever. But really it's been...roughly seventy percent of my life.

  
**BONO:** We've known each other our entire adult lives plus a couple of years when we were technically children. Forty years of U2. Happy anniversary, love. 

\-----

_It must be noted: at this point Bono and Edge stare at each other for a solid fifteen seconds, and a current of palpable affection and a touch of "are you still okay with this" flows between them. Edge nods almost imperceptibly and continues._

\-----

 **EDGE:** I don't want to waste everyone's time and rehash our entire history. That's not what this is about.

  
**BONO:** Exactly. People have to be sick to death of the story of U2 by now. Frankly so are we, and for what it's worth, we've already written an entire book about it [(U2, Neil McCormick. 2006. U2 by U2. New York, NY: It Books)](http://www.amazon.com/U2/dp/006190385X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1455811458&sr=1-1&keywords=u2+by+u2+paperback). But that book is missing a pretty substantial chapter, isn't it?

  
**EDGE:** Yes. We want to correct that. Do you think we should simply tell them now? Or...

  
**BONO:** Should we bury the lede? I spent all morning trying to decide.

  
**EDGE:** Either way, Rolling Stone will probably just reduce it to a single pull-quote in a text box that will pop out at anyone who's casually flipping through the magazine. You _know_ they will.

  
**BONO:** Fuck, you're right.

  
**EDGE:** And it will be on the cover, too, obviously. And online in any number of ways before the thing's even published. People reading this now _already know_.

  
**BONO:** Of _course_.

  
**EDGE:** So I don't think we have a choice. Do you want to say it or shall I?

  
**BONO:** Would you? I love hearing you say it.

  
**EDGE:** Alright. We're actually doing this.

  
**BONO:** Deep cleansing breath. This one's for the pull-quote, the Edge. Make it good.

  
**EDGE:** Okay. Bono and I have been in love for twenty-five years.

 

 

 

 

> \----------------------------------------------------------
> 
>   
>  **"Bono and I have been in love for twenty-five years." -- The Edge**
> 
>  
> 
> **\--------------------------------------------------------**
> 
>  
> 
>  

  
**BONO:** There now. That wasn't so difficult, was it?

\-----

_Edge exhales as they gauge my reaction. "This is huge," I tell them, mentally flipping through a rapid slide show of now-iconic moments these two have shared and applying a plus-they're-in-love filter. "And yet it makes so much sense."_

_Bono smiles._

_\-----_

**ADAM CLAYTON** (bass player, U2, via Skype): When I first met Edge, I was struck by the sheer enormity of his head, to be honest. It would take him at least a decade to grow into it. He was quiet. He was not particularly cool. Even though he was younger than I was, I could tell he was operating at several levels above everyone else as he surveyed us from a distance. I assumed that under different circumstances, and if I hadn't owned a bass guitar or loved music, the two of us probably would not be friends. He was that exceptional, that special.

  
**LARRY MULLEN, JR** (drummer, U2, via Skype): And then you had Bono--I mean, can you imagine him as a teenager? Take current Bono, multiply him by about five, and then stuff all of that into a very small package. And turn the volume up to eleven.

  
**ADAM CLAYTON:** He was like a moth that had just hatched--they _hatch_ , right?--from its cocoon or whatever, and he would fly around in this manic, spiraling way trying to impress everyone in the entire world. And Edge was this serene light bulb, and once Bono saw that light bulb, all he wanted to do was ping away at the glass so he could get to what was inside.

  
**LARRY MULLEN, JR** : I used to have a couple of refrigerator magnets--yin and yang symbols you could separate. And the way they matched up perfectly when I brought them together was so satisfying.

  
**ADAM CLAYTON:** Or a combination lock once you've dialed in all the right numbers, and you feel the wheel kind of want to stop at the last one, and then it opens up so easily.

  
**LARRY MULLEN, JR:** That was them. That's what it's like to watch them talk to each other or write together. Or just to see them interact on stage. I've spent the better part of my life watching _that thing_ happen. You _know_ what I'm talking about. It's undeniable. And I don't even get to see their faces most of the time.

\-----

 **BONO:** We were all so young.

  
**EDGE:** He was like no one else. He _is_ like no one else.

  
**BONO:** He is everything I'm not. I understood it even then.

  
**EDGE:** We both did. I felt this shock of recognition from the very beginning. It's like meeting your Doppelganger, except...

  
**BONO:** He possesses everything I wish I had. And if I can't have those things--if I don't have his patience, his talent, and his analytical mind--at least I can align myself with this creature. And together, as a unit, we're...we're kind of unstoppable.

  
**EDGE:** You get a handful of days in your lifetime that will change it forever. The day I met you was one of them.

  
**BONO:** It was like falling in love. It _was_ falling in love.

  
**EDGE:**  But then drop that on a couple of unsuspecting boys living in 1970s Dublin. It was a gift, but at the same time it was maybe a tiny bit of a curse. We certainly weren't equipped to deal with it at the time.

  
**BONO:** It was just _a lot_.

  
**EDGE:** Let's file him under "bandmate" for now. That's what he is. That's easy to understand. We had things to do.

  
**BONO:** Then later that week, later _that very same week_ , I met the beautiful girl who would become my wife.

  
**EDGE:** Amazing.

  
**BONO:** Two in one week. An embarrassment of riches.

\-----

 **ALI HEWSON** (Bono's wife, via Skype): He was a tornado. And I was just a girl.

 


	2. Bonding

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The interview continues with this chapter. It deals with their relationship in its infancy. It's mostly B and E talking, but don't worry. Others will come in eventually.
> 
> The painting described is similar to the one I've linked to at the end (I don't want to spoil it up here). I don't know if paintings by this artist are available for just anybody to buy, but if they are, I think Bono and Edge could afford one. If not them, who? 
> 
> Thanks to fouroux and spacemonkey for their enthusiasm for this story and their sweet messages about it. :)

  
**ALI HEWSON** : I was Dorothy, and this tornado rolled into my life and took me to a beautiful place I never could have imagined. All I wanted was something simple: a home. A family. Love. But once Bono and I had seen those colors, we didn't want to go back to our black and white world. So we built a new home in that strange land and were joined by these...characters. These lovely new brothers of his.

  
\-----

 **BONO** : With Ali, I felt most of the same things I did with Edge, but she was in an easy-to-understand female package, and come on. Have you seen her? I was a teenage boy. Path of least resistance and all that.

 **EDGE** : You were extremely fortunate to have met her. She is a jewel. I envied you at the time. Everything seemed to come to you so easily.

 **BONO** : I beg to differ! Have you heard me play guitar?

 **EDGE** : You know what I mean. Girls flocked to you. You're easy to love.

 **BONO** : You and Ali would have made a great couple too, you realize. So much in common with each other.

 **EDGE** : I can think of one thing in particular.

 **BONO** : You should see them together, the way they figure out ways to deal with me.

 **EDGE** : Like a couple of sister-wives. Sister-wife and brother-husband.

 **BONO** : ...What are you talking about?

 **EDGE** : You know, that show? The polygamists? The man with the four...never mind.

 **BONO** : Anyway, these two. These two were a gift. Sometimes I think my mother _[Iris Hewson, who died when Bono was 14 years old. -- Ed.]_ sent them to me.

\-----

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : Those first few years are such a blur to me now. So many things were happening at the same time. School, friends, girlfriends, going to shows...

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : Learning how to play our instruments, trying to make money any way we could, family problems...religion.

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : Everybody except me on that last one.

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : We were just...figuring out how to be in a band and work together and play other people's songs, poorly (we weren't even close to writing our own). We didn't want it to be a huge waste of time.

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : And it wasn't. It never was for me.

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : Edge was the one who could have had a real future. He could have been a doctor. And for a while he had problems reconciling rock and roll with Christianity. Luckily for all of us, Bono convinced him to stay in the band. He convinced him to follow his heart. But that was...1982, I think? We still had some time to become thoroughly addicted to being in U2.

\-----

 **EDGE** : I don't think I slept for the next five or six years. I felt like I was being pulled in a lot of different directions. Most of them involved other people, including the girl I would marry and have three daughters with _[Aislinn O'Sullivan, with whom Edge separated in 1990 and ultimately divorced. She was unavailable for comment, but the two have remained friends. -- Ed.]_. We were trying to get a record deal, and once we did, things never seemed to slow down. It was all so draining. I'd come home exhausted, but before I could sleep I had to spend some time alone with my guitar and just...decompress. That felt so necessary.

 **BONO** : I remember feeling vaguely jealous of your guitars back then. And for heaven's sake, I still am. The love and attention he lavishes on them...

 **EDGE** : You were the exception, of course. You did not exhaust me.

 **BONO** : I have never quite believed that. I am the textbook definition of "exhausting human being."

 **EDGE** : Not to me. I felt oddly comfortable around you. You energized me. And you seemed to know when I needed some peace. You even tried to protect me from other people when we started to tour.

 **BONO** : "The Edge isn't receiving at this time," I'd tell them in a posh, plummy way, like I was your butler or something. And you were so otherworldly people would tend to accept that. You'd have some time to stare at the wall or do whatever it is you do, and I'd usually join them for a few hours. I'd come back to our room--we had to share rooms to save money.

 **EDGE** : Not because we found each other particularly attractive.

 **BONO** : Oh not at all. We were simply being thrifty. Anyway, I'd come back to our room, half drunk and reeking of cigarettes, and you'd be right where I left you, either reading or practicing or looking out the window or pretending to sleep.

 **EDGE** : Sometimes I was sleeping.

 **BONO** : Your breathing changes when you're truly asleep. I can always tell. And I was secretly pleased when you were pretending.

 **EDGE** : You'd put on your little show.

 **BONO** : I had this blue night light I used to take wherever we stayed. I hated waking up in the middle of the night in some strange place and having no idea where I was.

 **EDGE** : Also because of ghosts.

 **BONO** : The threat is real, Reg _["Reg" is Bono's secondary nickname for the Edge, which is Bono's primary nickname for David Evans. --Ed.]_.

 **EDGE** : There was always a certain amount of fumbling around looking for an outlet.

 **BONO** : Then I'd take off my clothes--total locker room mentality around each other, no big deal--and get into bed. Most of the time I had my own bed, but other times I had to share one with you. Tragically. Then I would proceed to do something young men have done since time immemorial. In stealth mode, of course.

 **EDGE** : Your so-called stealth mode is truly laughable. I could hear everything, I could feel every tremor, and thanks to your little night light, I could see everything, too. Plus it's not like you believe in blankets.

 **BONO** : You're the one who sets the thermostat all the way up to Dante's Inferno, you bloody ectomorph. And come on, I buried my face in a pillow if I had an extra one.

 **EDGE** : Economy motels are known far and wide for their surplus pillows.

 **BONO** : Anyway. You loved it.

 **EDGE** : I did.

 **BONO** : And then on those nights when you were obviously awake, or when you'd do me the great honor of actually going out with me and our friends, we'd end up talking about girls in the dark.

 **EDGE** : A simple bonding activity.

 **BONO** : Either our girls or girls we had noticed that night.

 **EDGE** : Girls leaning against the stage who would reach up and grab you.

 **BONO** : I had to go out there and connect with our audience. My backside was an important piece of stagecraft.

 **EDGE** : You're not wrong.

 **BONO** : We never admitted it at the time, but we weren't talking about girls simply because it was fun (although it was so much fun). It was also a way for us to turn each other on. And then we'd have to do something about that.

 **EDGE** : Total locker room mentality.

 **BONO** : Sure it was.

\-----

 _"Would you excuse us for a moment?" Bono asks, grinning at Edge. The two disappear into an unknown part of the villa, and I swear I hear a dull thud followed by a low "yeah" not unlike the one heard at the beginning of their song_ Desire _. They return a couple of minutes later, all smiles. Edge moves a chess piece, and Bono pours himself a glass of water._

\-----

 **BONO** : Now, where were we?

 **EDGE** : Early days on the road.

 **BONO** : Of course.

 **EDGE** : I don't think anyone can truly understand how bizarre touring with a band can be unless they do it themselves. We were barely out of our teens, and Dublin was the only world we knew. Suddenly we were recording songs, playing them for people, and traveling to cities we could barely keep track of. First in lousy old vans, then lousy old buses. Then slightly better buses.

 **BONO** : Countless expensive phone calls back home to Ali, who was waking up on the other side of the world and apparently getting along just fine without me.

 **EDGE** : Postcards to Aislinn and my parents from every place we played, at least for that first go-round.

 **BONO** : We were in a unique situation. No one could relate to what we were dealing with except ourselves. That--along with new songs we were writing because we were on that endless treadmill, too--only brought us closer together.

 **EDGE** : Those nighttime encounters we had with each other--we were walking a line between appropriate and inappropriate, and they were not without guilt. They weren't purely innocent things all friends simply do. I mean, we never discussed them with Ali or Aislinn.

 **BONO** : No. And Ali's since admitted that she was glad I was with you and not some random female fans. She knew we could have had a lot more fun out there than we did.

 **EDGE** : But we didn't _have to_ do things with anyone at all. We could have been completely chaste. I sort of beat myself up about it from time to time.

 **BONO** : Yeah. Me too.

 **EDGE** : And I didn't want to hurt your feelings, whatever they were for me then. But when it became a little too much to bear, I'd end up staying with Larry, and you were with Adam.

 **BONO** : But you always came back to me.

 **EDGE** : Always.

 **BONO** : Then there were those nights on the bus when we didn't have the luxury of a motel room, and we had to get to the next city as soon as a show ended.

 **EDGE** : That first big American tour.

 **BONO** : God, it was so fucking romantic, watching that gargantuan landscape roll out in front of us, day after day, and night after night. We saw more of America than most Americans ever do. Certainly more than most Irishmen. We were in awe.

 **EDGE** : When we weren't sleeping.

 **BONO** : Who could sleep? It took hours for me to come down after a show, and my eyes were so greedy, especially when the moon was full and I could see deserts, and red rocks, and mountains for the first time. You know I always let you have the window seat, but I was looking out at least as much as you were, if not more.

 **EDGE** : You certainly had no problem leaning over me to get a better look.

 **BONO** : One night we were stopped somewhere in Utah, and the moon was out. You had nodded off, and your head had been bumping against the window, so I rolled up my jacket and put it between you and the glass. I looked out and saw this strange formation, tall and skinny with a big rock on top, kind of like what you see in Roadrunner cartoons--

 **EDGE** : A hoodoo?

 **BONO** : I guess? (He makes it his business to know things like this.) It made a dramatic shadow in the moonlight, and your profile and your cheekbones seemed to blend in with it. I took a mental snapshot of you and kissed your forehead. I couldn't help it.

 **EDGE** : One night--I think it was near Tulsa--we were waiting around at a gas station. Do you remember this? The thunderstorm? It was a clear night, but we watched an isolated supercell rumble and flash along the horizon. It looked like a Portuguese man o' war--

 **BONO** : (Only you.)

 **EDGE** : We leaned against the bus and watched this perfect self-contained system that was lit by the moon and pale gray against the night sky. You said something about how this was the Midwest's version of mountains, and a beautiful jagged line of lightning crackled from the center of the cloud to its right side. You gasped and I took your hand.

 **BONO** : Of course I remember that.

 **EDGE** : I wonder if anyone else saw it.

 **BONO** : The lightning? Or the hands...that was when we started holding hands.

 **EDGE** : ...Do you like that painting?

\-----

 _A Rothko, an_ actual Rothko _, hangs on a nearby wall. Its twin, stacked rectangular shapes (red and white) glow against a bright red background. "Please, come take a look at it," Edge says, standing, and soon we are contemplating it quietly for a few moments. "Worth every blessed cent," Bono says, resting his head on Edge's shoulder as he has done countless times onstage._  
\-----

 **EDGE** : From a distance, his paintings can seem so simple. But when you look closely, you can see lots of subtle differences inside the shapes. This red has blue in it here, and orange over there, and in some places it's thick, and in others it's almost transparent. The center of the rectangles always seems so alive and complex.

 **BONO** : For me it's all about what's happening on the borders of the shapes. This boundary where the white meets the red might as well be the Rocky Mountains. Or it's a prairie fire.

 **EDGE** : I can never ignore it when I walk by.

 **BONO** : It reminds us of what we love about each other.

 

[painting is here](http://imgur.com/4yZjPSd)

 


	3. Hands

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The interview continues as Bono and Edge and company discuss the Eighties, and I was not a maniac about researching exact dates for a few items. Oh, I looked things up, but I was a little more relaxed than usual. I justified it by thinking, hey, all of this stuff happened 30-plus years ago, and Bono can't remember his own lyrics, much less exact dates and places from decades ago. :)
> 
> I'd like to dedicate this chapter to leelah, my old U2 slash colleague. She was Edge to my Bono and Dr. Dre to my Eminem. Our friendship deteriorated in real life a few years ago, and she hasn't written B/E in over a decade. She won't read this, I'm positive, but her beautiful (and long lost) story about hands inspired me to write in the first place, and for that I will be forever grateful. I miss you, leelah.

[(Photo)](http://imgur.com/edit)

\-----

_Bono and Edge return to their over-the-top loveseat and settle in. Bono glances at the chess board, glares at Edge with borderline betrayal, and moves a bishop without really looking._

\-----

 **BONO** : Seriously, Edge?

 **EDGE** : Chess is pointless. Did you know Bono was something of a chess prodigy?

 **BONO** : I was indeed.

 **EDGE** : Was that your plan B in case U2 didn't work out?

 **BONO** : I didn't have a plan B because we were going to succeed, and I knew it all along, and it didn't surprise me one bit.

\-----

_Bono takes Edge's hand and studies him as Edge looks out the window at the serene Côte d'Azur ._

\-----

 **BONO** : You're blushing.

 **EDGE** : Am I?

 **BONO** : A little. We decided a long time ago that holding hands was not out of bounds.

 **EDGE** : But we were never obvious about it.

 **BONO** : No...a coat or a blanket or _the dark_ was usually involved. But honestly, what is so outrageous about one person holding the hand of another?

 **EDGE** : It's a public announcement. It says I am allowing you to violate my space bubble, and I don't care who knows it.

 **BONO** : This man's space bubble has a radius of about six feet. At least. It's sacred.

 **EDGE** : And this man has no radius.

 **BONO** : It's an honor and a privilege to be granted access inside your bubble, Reg.

 **EDGE** : My pleasure.

 **BONO** : Do you remember that time when we took off from our motel in search of a liquor store--that same first tour, some anonymous fourth-tier American city?

 **EDGE** : That could have been literally twenty different places.

 **BONO** : It was dusk--dove colors, salmon clouds, the scent of burning leaves. We heard cheering, and before we knew it, we were crashing a high school football game.

 **EDGE** : Oh yes. I wish we could be that anonymous again.

 **BONO** : Well, people were staring at us, but it was simply because I was wearing some terrific boots. So the game was about to start, and they were going to do a coin toss or something in the center of the field. And these four boys, these fucking giant man-children came walking out from each side, and they were holding hands in this extraordinary display of unity and machismo.

 **EDGE** : There is a certain amount of homoeroticism in American football.

> **\--------------------------------------**  
>  **"There is a certain amount of homoeroticism in American football."**  
>  **\--The Edge**  
>  **\--------------------------------------**

**BONO** : But I saw that and I thought, "Why can't we do that?" We should get Larry and Adam in on it, too, and walk onstage together that way. This time around we're fucking doing it. Who's gonna stop us?

 **EDGE** : You know, I'd like to take back what I said about the space bubble. It's really more about human connection. Holding hands says, "This person is not alone. They have me."

 **BONO** : It's comforting, especially when you're facing the unknown. And I'd like to take back what I said about knowing U2 would succeed. We had no idea what we were in for then, and Edge and I have no idea what we'll be in for after this interview is published. But we are facing it together, and that's what these hands mean.

 **EDGE** : Yes.

 **BONO** : Your readers won't be able to see this, but you can do countless things with another person's hand, you know. From innocent to absolutely indecent, needless to say.

 **EDGE** : (Please calm down.) I remember that last flight back to Dublin as we taxied to the gate. Your hand was clenched in the shape of a human heart, and mine was wrapped around it. The plane stopped, the lights came on, and your hand slipped out of mine. We got up, and I felt my hand shift from warm to cool to cold, and I missed you already.

 **BONO** : We were back in Dublin and its expectations of normalcy. I know it's a cliché to say something like this, but the city seemed so small. We returned to our girls and tried to shake off whatever _this_ was between us. Sort of a heterosexual palate cleanser, if you will.

 **EDGE** : Maybe even an antidote.

\-----

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : When did we start to suspect that something more was going on with them?

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : Well, they had that chemistry from the very beginning. Kirk and Spock kinda stuff. On the road they were inseparable. We sort of split into two couples.

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : Finally he admits it!

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : No. Not us. We became a couple by default because nobody could tear those two away from each other. Except when they were on one of their breaks, and it was awkward for a day or two, but they were back together soon enough.

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : Clearly they had feelings they weren't acting on. We have the luxury of hindsight now. Of course it was sexual tension.

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : Accompanied by the special kind of guilt that comes from growing up on the north side of Dublin.

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : Then we were back home, and Bono was with Ali, and Edge had Aislinn, and they were making plans to get married almost immediately.

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : It seemed crazy to me at the time. You're barely out of your teens. The band is starting to take off. You have a lot of work to do. You will be gone for months at a time. Why are you making this huge commitment so soon?

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : I think they wanted stability and a life that made sense to other people...and themselves. They loved Ali and Aislinn, but, you know. _I_ was Bono's best man. That kind of says something.

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : Edge was the one giving Bono away.

\-----

 **ALI HEWSON** : Bono came home from that first tour brimming with tales of the things they'd seen and done. He even had a list in his apalling handwriting. He had saved those stories up, and they all came tumbling out over the course of a week. He simply would not stop talking. Or kissing me. He had some awfully romantic notions about our future. I had other interests in my life besides him, of course, but at the same time...being away from each other for so long was hard. I felt like my patience was being rewarded, and I was standing in the sunshine after a dull, lonely winter. He was in love with me, but he was also infatuated with the idea of us and the beauty of his own words. They were seductive and persuasive, and I had missed him so much. How could I refuse him?

\-----

 **EDGE** : He has a way of insinuating himself into the lives of others. The longer you're with him, the more intense it becomes, and we had been together constantly for almost nine months. He's always had a unique point of view, and all of his observations and little asides stuck with me. I couldn't look at floral wallpaper or eat a bowl of soup or tie my shoelaces--or a thousand other things--without thinking about his takes on them.

 **BONO** : You had the same effect on me.

 **EDGE** : You know how sometimes you'll be standing in a giant hall or under a tall domed ceiling, and you'll swear someone is right beside you talking? But they're actually pretty far away, and it's just the acoustics of the room messing with you? That is what it's like when he leaves. I could still hear him talking as though he were next to me. But he needed to be with Ali. No one could deny that, not even me.

 **BONO** : I was back with Ali, and life was beautiful. I couldn't risk the possibility of losing her when we left for the next tour, so I acted quickly and decisively. I wanted a piece of paper that legally demanded her to be in my life whether I was around or not. She knew our situation would be unconventional (my god, neither of us could have known), but she didn't blink. With any other woman, things could have fallen apart in a hurry. Luckily my instincts about her were right. She said yes.

 **EDGE** : It broke my heart, just a little.

 **BONO** : Oh, Edge.

\-----

 **ALI HEWSON** : To live with Bono is to accept his hero-worship of Edge. Not that it's hard; Edge is very special, and he is the kindest, most intelligent person I know. Every day, multiple times a day, I'll get an "Edge thinks this" or an "Edge said that" from Bono. An undeniable attraction has always existed between them. And rather than feeling competitive, I felt an immediate kinship with Edge--as if he were a long-lost brother. We're at the point now where we can communicate with each other via facial expressions alone if we have to, a trick that is often necessary when it comes to dealing with Bono, who finds this skill infuriating. I love Edge and I can't feel jealous of him. Bono needs both of us.

\-----

 **EDGE** : So. I focused on Aislinn. She is a lovely person and so beautiful. Her face especially, my goodness.

 **BONO** : At the time she reminded me of a less extreme version of Siouxie Sioux with those glorious eyes of hers, you know?

 **EDGE** : Oh yeah. People would gawk at her, and I was not immune to her charms. She was funny, and honestly she was too cool for me. She proved to be a delightful distraction, and yes, being with her made sense. You had Ali, and I had Aislinn. Symmetry. We were married...I think it was about a year after you.

 **BONO** : And then, apparently as potent as a goddamn bull, you had three little girls in about five years.

 **EDGE** : My hairline receded just as quickly.

 **BONO** : Cause and effect.

 **EDGE** : You and Ali spent a lot more time bonding as a couple before having children. And that was smart because Aislinn and I were overwhelmed. I love the girls more than life itself, I hope it goes without saying. But it was a lot to deal with all at once.

 **BONO** : That first night when Ali and I babysat--I think it was just Hollie at the time--it didn't take us long to realize we weren't ready, not by a long shot.

 **EDGE** : Aislinn and I had to grow up incredibly quickly, and the sense of responsibility I felt was crushing at times. Meanwhile, when she and I were together, U2 were writing some of our best songs. We were on the radio, touring, and making money. We recorded six albums. Six!

 **BONO** : As opposed to now, when we might manage to release...one?

 **EDGE** : But it seemed like I was decades older than the rest of the band and had become this middle-aged man twenty years too soon.

 **BONO** : Was that why you buttoned your shirts all the way up to the top back then? You always looked so conservative, the Edge.

 **EDGE** : Come on, neither of us had a clue about style. Plus it was the Eighties.

 **BONO** : Uptight hobo evangelist.

 **EDGE** : Mullet-haver.

 **BONO** : Maybe our various crimes against fashion were unconscious attempts at repelling each other.

 **EDGE** : It didn't make any difference to me. You were still startlingly beautiful.

 **BONO** : You transcended any number of horrible prints and, god, remember when you used to put playing cards in your hat band? What the hell was that about?

 **EDGE** : We were actually paying someone to make us look that bad by then.

 **BONO** : And yet.

 **EDGE** : And yet.

 **BONO** : Seeing you holding a baby for the first time was a surreal experience. Sweet, but surreal. I knew our lives were changing drastically. I think of my girls--who are our age or older than we were at the time--and I can't imagine either of them saddled with multiple children now. They have the luxury of enjoying this lovely, extended adolescence where they can figure out who they are as people and pursue their dreams.

 **EDGE** : We were pursuing our dreams, too, but that went hand in hand with compromises and guilt. And then there were all those months on the road. Things were at least semi-manageable when I was home. But Aislinn was not as independent as Ali, and my absences hurt her, and that was totally understandable. We were in way over our heads, and it became worse over time. Plus we had grown apart because we weren't fully-formed adults when we got together, and resentments accumulated. What a mess.

 **BONO** : I hated to see you under so much stress--enough stress for three men. Out of respect for our wives, we kept each other at a relative distance physically and threw ourselves into the music, at least for a few years. I've got to say that sublimated sexual tension resulted in some of our best work. But as your marriage deteriorated, and that didn't just happen instantly, you seemed so sad, Edge. We'd be on the road and I'd see your face after one of those interminable phone calls.

 **EDGE** : Awful circular arguments that felt like hostage situations.

 **BONO** : You always looked like you needed a hug. And oh I was the one to give it to you. But you'd shrug it off as often as you'd accept it.

 **EDGE** : Let's not forget the cameras filming us every step of the way.

 **BONO** : Ugh, the cameras...

 **EDGE** : And all of a sudden we were dealing with stadiums full of people and the feeling of incompetence every night for one reason or another. We should have been on top of the world, but that rush of fame and success created more stress.

 **BONO** : Thus began my Edge Shoulder Rub Initiative.

 **EDGE** : Initiative?

 **BONO** : I had snuck out one Sunday morning to visit a local church. I couldn't tell you where. Baltimore, maybe? No one paid much attention to me, this pale little guy who fancied himself as some kind of Irish cowboy. It was an inspirational, rousing service, and when it was over I noticed something I hadn't seen before. Everyone started to cluster around a dozen or so elderly ladies, all in their Sunday best with these fantastic hats. And in a sort of informal way, people showered these beaming women with affection, hugs, and kisses. I asked someone why they were doing this, and he simply said, "They're widows." It touched my heart.

 **EDGE** : Did you go over and kiss them, too?

 **BONO** : Of course!

 **EDGE** : Such an incurable flirt. They must have loved you.

 **BONO** : I put my Irish charm to good use. But that stayed with me--their church family recognized their need for simple physical attention. So of course I thought about you, Edge. You have the hardest job in the band, you know.

 **EDGE** : Totally disagree.

 **BONO** : You do. It's easy for you to feel isolated out there even when you're happy. You were under a lot of pressure on that tour. You dealt with it magnificently, of course, but when you carry the weight of the world on your shoulders, sometimes they need some love. I'd see you slumped over after a show, and if you'd had a couple of drinks, I knew I could come up behind you and...heal you with the laying on of hands, right? I considered it a personal victory when I could get you to loosen up.

 **EDGE** : It's not like I was starved for attention from you, though. You really started to stalk me onstage.

 **BONO** : I'd stand there for entire songs, kind of playing my guitar between you and Adam, our right heels pounding on the stage in unison--and I could only do that for so long, Edge. I owed our fans a little variety.

 **EDGE** : So you'd stomp on over to me. Some nights when it was particularly cold, I'd see actual steam swirling off you. I'd be freezing and struggling to keep my fingers moving, but you'd be wearing just a vest and dripping with sweat. You'd get right in my face or lean against me, and part of me was annoyed because you'd just made it that much harder for me to concentrate, but at the same time you were so _warm_.

 **BONO** : How are you doing now, Edge? Warm enough? Comfortable? Anything I can do for you?

 **EDGE** : You. I'm fine. Anyway. You'd find somewhere else you needed to be soon enough, and along the way you'd have to run your hand through your hair at least a few times.

 **BONO** : It was always getting in my face, Reg.

 **EDGE** : Well, it was pretty as Ali's at the time. If you saw the two of them from behind, sometimes you'd have no idea who was who.

 **BONO** : Your hair was even longer, you know.

 **EDGE** : It saw the writing on the wall and was enjoying its last hurrah, but what was left of it was either hiding under a hat or ridiculously long and frizzy.

 **BONO** : It was fun to braid, though.

 **EDGE** : Another one of your initiatives.

\-----

_Bono lifts Edge's hand to his lips and kisses it. The two smile at each other. Bono looks at me. "We'll get to the good part soon, I promise."_

\-----

 


	4. Baby

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In preparing to write this chapter, I had to dig back into my old stories (Close/r/st) to check on the timeline I had established years ago. I just wanted to take a quick, cringe-y peek, but I ended up reading all of them over a couple of days. 
> 
> Over time my mind had turned these stories into caricatures of themselves, so I was pleasantly surprised to see they weren't as bad as I had built them up to be, although Jesus Christ with the vocabulary pyrotechnics. I was shocked when they turned me on, but then again I had forgotten 75 percent of what I had written. For the first time I felt like one of my own readers, and I kept wondering, "Who even is this person? Oh yeah IT'S ME." Tip to all fic writers who can't take pleasure in their own work because they're too caught up in the technical stuff: put those stories in a vault and just walk away for fourteen years. Then come back to them. You'll blow your own mind.
> 
> I will post those old stories here after I finish this one. A million thanks to Choose2Live for saving them from the sinking ship that was L.I.B., R.I.P.

\-----

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : What do you mean, we have to be the ones to explain Berlin and that whole fucked up winter? They skimmed over that mess?

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : They were telling a different and potentially explosive story, you know.

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : I get it now. The only reason we're here is to fill in the gaps.

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : I think anyone who has read this far already knows about Berlin. But in case they don't...

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : You want to know what we did to dream it all up again, reader? We went to Berlin in late 1990 because certain people thought we could magically absorb whatever creative juices David Bowie had left on the floor at Hansa Studios. But they were all dried up and crusty.

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : Crusty?

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : [laughing] Edge tried to pry them off with a putty knife and, you know, crush them into a powder and snort them, and then you had Bono on his hands and knees attempting to lick them up. You and I were like, "Why can't we just play some fucking rock and roll?"

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : That's it in a nutshell.

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : By Christmas we had to decide if we even wanted to be in a band anymore. You know what? We made a movie about this. Can't you link to it or put in an Amazon ad so people can watch it in case they actually care?

 

> [( _From the Sky Down_ trailer)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzeR0hV0ZTU)
> 
> [(Purchase on Amazon.com)](http://www.amazon.com/U2-From-The-Sky-Down/dp/B005SD25WA)

**ADAM CLAYTON** : Spoiler alert: we decided we wanted to be in a band.

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : And now back to Bono and Edge and the most important love story of our time.

\-----

 **BONO** : Late one night that January, I was tossing and turning in bed, and I didn't want to wake poor Ali. She was pregnant with our second daughter and exhausted with our first, who was two years old, and she needed all the sleep she could get. So I went for a drive in the pissing rain. I passed Edge's house. Aislinn had taken the girls right after Christmas, and he wasn't sure how long they'd be gone, and I was worried about him. I saw a light on upstairs, so I stopped and let myself in.

 **EDGE** : When you give this man a key, don't assume it will languish in a drawer somewhere. It's not a key to him; it's an open invitation.

 **BONO** : Whatever, the Edge. You needed looking after. I could hear your stereo before I opened the front door. Your television was on and tuned to CNN. Wall-to-wall coverage of the Gulf War. Remember that? How it was like watching a fucking video game? The whole living room was bathed in an unearthly green glow--night vision air strikes in real-time. And you weren't there. I turned on some lights and followed the sound of the music to your bedroom. _Where Is My Mind?_ by the Pixies. You were sitting on the end of the bed with your head in your hands.

 **EDGE** : You would have scared the life out of me if I hadn't already been...completely scared anyway. I was not in a good place. I heard your boots on the hardwood floor over the din of the music--

 **BONO** : Incidentally, if you're on the cusp of an emotional breakdown, that is the song you want playing.

 **EDGE** : Agreed. I had been listening to it on repeat. I looked up and saw a blurred watercolor version of you shimmering there. You were beside me in an instant, your arm around my shoulders, and I leaned into you and wept as the song ended and started up again. I kept asking you, "How did you know?"

 **BONO** : Somehow I did. And while watching you cry brought tears to my own eyes, I felt honored to be the one comforting you. You trusted me. You _needed_ me.

 **EDGE** : After a certain point, when life is at its blackest, any privacy or dignity you might have slips away, and you're this raw, vulnerable...

 **BONO** : Edge.

 **EDGE** : Anyone who can guide you out of that darkness, or at least just be with you _in it_ so you're not so alone...

 **BONO** : Love.

 **EDGE** : How could I see you as anything other than a gift?

 **BONO** : Like I said, it was a privilege.

 **EDGE** : That winter was bleak, but you were there whenever I needed you. You're actually an excellent listener when you want to be. Little known fact.

 **BONO** : Later at home I'd write down things you'd said. "There is a silence that comes to a house where no one can sleep." I've never had a broken heart, at least not in a romantic sense. When an artist experiences pain--and you felt that pain deeply--wow. You left me with so many valuable insights and images. I was learning from you. I filled a notebook with those scraps of dark beauty.

 **EDGE** : Glad you were able to mine the worst time of my life for material, B.

 **BONO** : Yes, I'm just that calculating.

 **EDGE** : I'm kidding. At least some good came from it. Aislinn and I officially separated around Easter. Divorce was illegal in Ireland until 1995, so we would be stuck in a strange limbo until then. And as troubled as the band was at the time, I clung to them for dear life. I couldn't bear the thought of losing them, too.

 **BONO** : Like you'd ever lose us. Even if the band ended tomorrow, we'd still be your brothers. One of us substantially more so.

 **EDGE** : He and I are blood brothers, too, by the way. Remember? I cut my finger on a piece of glass when we were teenagers, and you siezed the opportunity.

 **BONO** : With a quickness that made your head spin.

\-----

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : Bono told me about Edge's fragile state, and I immediately suggested he stay with me for a while. That way Aislinn could remain in their house, the girls could have some relative normalcy, and he wouldn't be so alone. It was lovely to have him around, and I was happy to help. My world became infinitely more organized as a result.

\-----

 **ANTON CORBIJN** (celebrated Dutch photographer, music video director, and film director responsible for the majority of U2's visual output): I was surprised when Bono reached out to me for advice that winter. It's unlike U2 to request a photo shoot that far in advance of an album release, but he told me about the band's creative woes. He thought they could use some visual inspiration. "What's the least U2-like place you can imagine, Anton?" We brainstormed for a while before agreeing upon a location. Bono was adamant that we create images that would catapult the band out of their comfort zone. "Surprise us." After that initial consultation, he slid me a _Joshua Tree_ LP, upon which he had scrawled with a silver marker, "Give us the opposite of this." I took that as an implicit license to mess with their minds just a little.

\-----

 **BONO** : Things began looking up for us in February. Anton asked us to meet him for a couple of weeks in the Canary Islands for Carnival. He knew a complete change of scenery would be as beneficial for him as it would be for us. We left monochromatic Dublin for a paradise of saturated colors. For once Anton photographed us in color, and we had been so stir-crazy in Dublin we couldn't help but loosen up.

\-----

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : Leather jacket, white t-shirts, jeans, boots. I had everything I needed. Once we were there for a few days, I started to relax and absorb the lunacy of Carnival. Then the trunks of props arrived, and I became increasingly alarmed.

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : You know the moment in _Pulp Fiction_ when John Travolta looks inside that briefcase and whatever's in there illuminates his face with a golden light? That was Larry opening those trunks, except instead of gold it was every color of the rainbow.

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : Masks, sequins, feathers...fucking _dresses_? I was in deep trouble.

\-----

 **BONO** : Ahh, the first round of drag photos. I'll never forget seeing Larry on a couch--scowling and seething--in that kicky little blonde wig and poufy skirt. He was not sitting in a ladylike fashion. Fucking adorable.

 **EDGE** : He was. I don't know why he was complaining the most. He pulled it off so much more convincingly than the rest of us.

 **BONO** : Adam was a good sport about it.

 **EDGE** : Oh, come on, he was actively loving it, and he grabbed the best dress and hat right away. I, on the other hand, was awkward. Game, but awkward.

 **BONO** : You were absolutely game! It's just that your face and your body are so uncompromisingly masculine, love.

 **EDGE** : You and I had more to conceal, let's say. I think Anton took several thousand shots during our time there, the vast majority of which will never see the light of day, thank god. From those he culled about a few dozen usable images that none of us actively hated. It was an interesting exercise. I came away from it with a newfound respect for anyone who wears makeup on a regular basis.

 **BONO** : Isn't that the truth? You and I played it for laughs, and we went for maximum camp in terms of costumes, but near the end Anton wanted to take some solo shots of me. And things shifted a bit.

\-----

 **ANTON CORBIJN** : I was thrilled with the way those two weeks unfolded, and it wouldn't be the last time we'd do something like this _[Corbijn shot U2 in drag again for their_ One _video later in 1991. --Ed.]_. The contrast between those male bodies and their female costumes...I could have easily shot for another couple of weeks, but I didn't want to try their patience. Bono has always been such a wonderful muse, so one night I convinced him to stay a little longer.

\-----

 

[(photo)](http://imgur.com/Ct1Rlq4)

 

 **EDGE** : Things were winding down, and Larry wiped his lipstick off with the back of his wrist, David Bowie-style--

 **BONO** : Oh, I wish I could have seen that.

 **EDGE** : --and he and Adam declared that they were going to "fuck off into this good night" while I chipped away at the stuff that had been spackled all over my face. Again, respect.

 **BONO** : Meanwhile, Anton had our handlers put me in a black dress, the one with the feathers around the neck and shoulders, and they slicked my hair back. He wanted to take some of his trademark, gritty black-and-white shots that were more serious. Edgier, if you will.

 **EDGE** : I always do.

 **BONO** : Soon enough you were looking like yourself again, and you came out and watched.

 **EDGE** : It was intense. You were seated and staring at Anton with an air of defiance. I don't think you even blinked. You have an enviable ability to play with different personae, and this was the first of several you'd concoct that year. You looked like Elizabeth Taylor's long-lost daughter/son hybrid.

 **BONO** : Anton had asked me to imagine my father's reaction to what we had been doing. I knew he would be outraged and speechless. And I was pleased to discover I didn't give a fuck.

 **EDGE** : In the end, he wasn't completely offended. He even appeared in the video.

 **BONO** : He tolerated it because he knew it wasn't real (I mean, as far as he knew). But what if it were? Different story. So I was feeling insolent and defensive. Then I noticed you lingering in the background, and my defiance became something more...

 **EDGE** : Seductive. That enigmatic little smile. Do it.

 **BONO** : [demonstrates]

 **EDGE** : You've still got it.

 **BONO** : As if there were any doubt.

 **EDGE** : You were so _on_. Anton had his shots within ten minutes, and you were dismissed. Our eyes locked and you walked right over to me, still in character.

 **BONO** : "Edge."

 **EDGE** : So imperious. I actually felt a little nervous. I said--

 **BONO** : "You are stunning. I mean it."

 **EDGE** : You raised an eyebrow and there was that smile again. Dormant feelings along with some new ones rose to the surface, and I allowed them do what they liked for a change.

 **BONO** : I realized you wanted me then. I happen to know you took off with a couple of extra contact sheets. And I began to devise a plan that would take the rest of the year to incubate and hatch.

 **EDGE** : But first we had to give birth to a different kind of Baby.

\-----

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : We spent the rest of our time at Carnival blowing off steam while Anton casually snapped away. Edge and Larry dancing, me extremely tipsy, Bono in a mask surrounded by anonymous drag queens--looking back, I think that was the first time he made that fake-screaming face.

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : More like fake-orgasm face. But you may be right.

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : It was exactly what we needed. We had been so dead serious in our attempt to become less serious. For the first time in months we were laughing with each other. We returned to Dublin with a different point of view.

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : We had finally turned that corner, and things began to click.

\-----

 **BONO** : The band rented a beautiful seaside estate within walking distance of my house and set up shop with Brian and Danny _[producers Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois -- Ed.]_ for the spring and summer, and to our great relief the songs started to bloom.

 **EDGE** : I probably spent more time there than I did at Adam's.

 **BONO** : Periodically I had to remind him to eat food, sleep, splash water on his face, and so on as he toiled in the musical vineyard. You came close to burning out every now and again, but I knew the ecstasy of creation was healing you. I have nothing but admiration for the way you transformed your own pain into those amazing sounds.

 **EDGE** : You were there with me more often than not.

 **BONO** : It was a particularly fecund time in our lives.

 **EDGE** : "Fecund." You.

 **BONO** : We fed off each other's ideas. Adam and Larry established this low, relentless pulse, and over that you created this...Cubist sculpture of a lullaby. I filled in with your mournful ideas and images of clockworks and cold steel, and you decorated them with deconstructed, spiky fragments of sound. And that solo of yours became ten times more devastating when we performed the song live.

 **EDGE** : You did your best to lighten the mood that spring. Fintan _[Fitzgerald, in charge of the band's wardrobe -- Ed.]_ found those sunglasses for you, and when you put them on you became this...character. And that character and his aphorisms eventually found his way into a song.

 **BONO** : An abrasive motherfucker of a song. You rarely play solos, Edge, but when you do you're like the quiet genius sitting at some horrid meeting who finally steps forward and speaks up and cuts through all the bullshit. That solo was equal parts sexual longing and pure rage.

 **EDGE** : Is that so?

 **BONO** : That's the way I always hear it. It's Willem de Kooning and his fast, slashing paintbrush. It's the way Pollock takes your eyes on a roller coaster ride.

 **EDGE** : He will go on like this for five solid minutes if I don't stop him. Please, no more art history comparisons, love.

 **BONO** : I'm just saying...it's the kind of music you can _actually see_. Who else does that?

 **EDGE** : I could name about fifty guitarists.

 **BONO** : Well, you're extraordinary, you know. And you're ours. You're _mine_.

 **EDGE** : And what about you? You've talked about how the album was informed by my grief, but your lyrics in the first half were blatantly sexual. There's no other way to describe them. Most of the best ones came spilling out of you in a stream of consciousness that took my breath away.

 **BONO** : Let me be your lover tonight, Reg.

 **EDGE** : You'd debut a line like that and shoot a smug glance at me, on the off-chance I had missed it.

 **BONO** : I'm ready for the push.

 **EDGE** : Jesus.

 **BONO** : It was those sunglasses, I swear. I always feel like I can be more frank when I'm talking in the dark, don't you? That huge, ridiculous piece of black plastic plunged me into artificial twilight, and I felt like I could say whatever I wanted.

 **EDGE** : Like you didn't already?

 **BONO** : I still had a tiny filter in place at the time. But I became increasingly comfortable saying things that were... _questionable_. Playful, but questionable. Those glasses, along with our musical experimentation, helped me transform into that slutty new character I felt compelled to develop. And you were an extremely attractive target for him. David Bowie, Lou Reed, Patti Smith, Iggy Pop--all of them would have tried to get a rise out of you just to see if they could.

 **EDGE** : We finished _Achtung Baby_  sometime in mid-September, and almost immediately after that we filmed the video for _The Fly_ , the first single.

 **BONO** : Most of it was shot in a studio in Dublin, just us performing in front of a blank backdrop, along with some bits with me staggering around London that were filmed a few weeks later. An easy one-day shoot.

 **EDGE** : We all realized we needed to create something that was as visually jarring as the music. First our wardrobe had to change. So for me that was easy enough: beanie instead of cowboy hat, embellished black jeans instead of ripped ones. Adam looked ten years younger without the Teddy Roosevelt glasses. And Larry was...Larry. Then you came swaggering in.

 **BONO** : I do know how to make an entrance, don't I?

 **EDGE** : All black, including the glasses, including the hair. The shorter hair.

 **BONO** : I was wearing an exceedingly cheap leatherette jacket that was so old it was actively peeling like an awful black sunburn, courtesy of Fintan. I pulled a bit off the sleeve and gave it to you, speechless you with the no-sleeves and the arms one always suspected were lurking beneath any number of shirts and coats.

\-----

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : So while Bono and Edge were openly gaping at each other, we talked with Ritchie _[Ritchie Smyth, video director. -- Ed.]_ about his vision for the video.

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : Fun guy. He set just the right tone. And he emphasized how important it was for us to break with the past.

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : His main advice for the two of us was simply: look cool and perhaps a little angry. Maybe hassle Bono a bit. And, you know...way ahead of you, man.

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : It was a veritable cakewalk.

\-----

 **BONO** : We were in very close quarters, almost right on top of each other in that cramped, sweaty studio. Ritchie had us run through the song a few times, but we were being too polite. He wanted us to invade each other's space, and you and I in particular were happy to oblige. I jokingly asked him for my motivation, and he simply said, "You want to fuck anything that moves."

 **EDGE** : Fair enough.

 **BONO** : It didn't make the cut, but I flung you against a wall, remember that?

 **EDGE** : I slammed into your back. And stayed there.

 **BONO** : Eventually he filmed us one at a time, and you actually played your solo over the track. It was marvelous to witness. I overheard Ritchie tell one of the camera men, "I can't believe we actually got him to fuck that guitar."

 **EDGE** : I do what I'm told.

 **BONO** : "Fuck" was the word of the day, that's for sure. And bless you for sticking around as he shot my interminable lip-synching segments. As god is my witness, I will never be comfortable doing that.

 **EDGE** : You were sensational and you know it. You transformed before our eyes.

 **BONO** : "Everyone wants to be you or fuck you. Sometimes both."

 **EDGE** : Your neck alone deserved a MacArthur genius grant for its performance.

 **BONO** : A vast swath of our fans were suitably shocked and alienated by the video. And I remember thinking, "Just you wait."

 **EDGE** : Everyone else was thunderstruck.

 **BONO** : The next day you flew to America with the master tapes, and while you were away I made some calls to several people I know in New York, set some wheels in motion, and contacted Anton again. I had an impulsive idea to collaborate with him on a secret art project. He was kind enough to indulge me.

\-----

 **ALI HEWSON** : I don't know which is more difficult for me: the years when they're on tour or the years when they're recording. I tend to think it's the latter. He's here, but he's not. He's lost inside his head. Or he'll talk for hours. Or he's exhausted. Or he's on fire for me. Or any combination of those, and that's when he's actually home. I was as big as a house that summer, in my ninth month with Eve, and to get some exercise I'd waddle over to their makeshift studio with Jordan _[Jordan Hewson, daughter of Ali and Bono. -- Ed.]_. And we'd at least have a late lunch together every day. Even with that kind of regularity, he was so absorbed in the music that it always took about three seconds for him to remember why I was there. You must know: I was used to this kind of thing. This was their seventh studio album, after all, and nothing seemed all that different, especially given the pressure they were under. But unbeknownst to me, a seed had been planted. And it was growing. _[Ali pauses for ten seconds. --Ed.]_ I'm sorry about that. May I please take a break? Just for a moment.


	5. Touch

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was difficult to write because my characters had to re-tell a story I had already written. I wanted to clearly convey what was happening for people who had not read it while providing a few Easter eggs for those who had. Luckily the original had shifting points of view, so I switched them with this version. Bono and Edge also had to tell this story to the masses, so some things couldn't be described in detail. I plan to post my original stories once this one is finished, so you'll eventually be able to read about the things they couldn't discuss. 
> 
> Thanks very much to everyone who has read this far and commented. This was written with love. And more than anything else, I wanted to illustrate the undeniable love these two have for each other.

[(photo)](http://imgur.com/CPnBONO)

 

 **ALI HEWSON** : Okay. Again, I apologize. This is harder than I thought! That year was bizarre, so whenever I revisit it, my memories are uncommonly vivid. For all intents and purposes, I was a single mother with three children--adorable Jordan, my darling baby Eve, and you know who. And he might as well have been three different people after they finished the record: doting father and husband, megalomaniac, and distracted rock star. And it was understandable. That tour was a convenient scapegoat. He had so many demands on his time, so many important things to plan, so many big ideas...while I struggled with the most mundane day-to-day tasks. Bono tried to pitch in where he could, and as usual he urged me to hire someone to help me, but that's not who I am. I had a decent support system in place in case of emergencies. I could have reached out to them any number of times, but I didn't. I took pride in my self-sufficiency, and I knew what I was getting into. Well, I sort of did. As the tour approached, I started to feel like a country road running alongside a freeway. I meandered slowly around curves and hillsides and through little towns while he raced in a straight line to his destination, and soon enough our roads diverged, and he was in America and I was...still here.

\-----

 **BONO** : I assume Ali will fill you in on what an idiot I was before we left for the States, yes?

 **EDGE** : If she doesn't, I'd be happy to.

 **BONO** : Whatever she has to say I agree with one hundred percent. Knowing her, she's softpedaling it, too. Artists--even the nice ones--are self-centered. They have to be. This Fly character I was creating (and becoming, honestly) was egotistical to begin with, so she had a double narcissist on her hands. I'm certain she felt relieved when I was finally out of her hair for a while.

\-----

 **ALI HEWSON** : I'd be lying if I said his absence wasn't a bit of a relief. Just a bit. But with that quiet freedom came a new uneasiness I couldn't quite shake.

\-----

 **BONO** : In my defense, I was 31 years old. The album was an instant critical and commercial success. How many musicians ever reach that level of fame and achievement doing something they love? A few hundred? We had hit a creative apex.

 **EDGE** : I was almost sad when I delivered the masters.

 **BONO** : You know, finishing an album is similar to giving birth to a child. I don't think I'm out of line in saying that, am I, Edge?

 **EDGE** : I mean, as far as we know it is. Being men, it's probably about as close as we'll get to that experience.

 **BONO** : We certainly went through our fair share of pain and screaming. But in the end it was worth the tears, and once we unleashed that Baby onto the world, people fell in love with it. We were such proud parents.

 **EDGE** : And we had been at each other's throats not even a year before that. We couldn't wait to start performing these new songs. And you: you would be the focus of the tour. You and your little backing band.

 **BONO** : Come on. You were all extraordinary.

 **EDGE** : No. ZooTV was your playground for two years. It was nightly performance art by you. We were supporting players, B. You had grown by leaps and bounds as a performer, and we were simply trying to keep up. I'm sure Adam and Larry would agree.

\-----

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : Oh yeah. ZooTV was Bono's show.

 **LARRY MULLEN** : Flawless drumming notwithstanding, yes.

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : Any of our techs could have stood in for us and no one would have batted an eye.

 **LARRY MULLEN** : [clears throat]

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : That was a joke. _[Adam Clayton was too hungover to play one of U2's concerts in Sydney, Australia near the end of the ZooTV tour and was replaced by Stuart Morgan, his guitar tech. -- Ed.]_

\-----

 **EDGE** : I had trouble looking at you when we were performing.

 **BONO** : Par for the course.

 **EDGE** : No, I physically had trouble. They dipped him in patent leather, you see, and he was so shiny the spotlights bounced off him and into my eyes sometimes. And on top of that he was just...outlandishly sexy. Look at any photo of him from that time.

 **BONO** : Ahh yes, the photos! Let's get back to that story.

 **EDGE** : During the run-up to the tour, I began hearing his voice in my head. Seriously. I was unbelievably busy, but I was still processing the separation. I found myself sort of imagining Bono's take on everyday occurrences. Then it became more pervasive. I told you that given a chance he will insinuate himself into every aspect of your life.

 **BONO** : Just try and stop me, Reg.

\-----

 **ANTON CORBIJN** : I finally had a few months to work on non-U2 projects, so I was surprised when Bono contacted me with an offer I couldn't refuse, as they say. He had somehow arranged for an exhibition of my photos at a lovely New York gallery in late January. He said he knew a guy. "No need to thank me," he claimed, and then in the same breath he asked me if I wouldn't mind taking a few experimental photos of him. Just for fun, and maybe it would turn into something I could use for the show and he could use for the tour. He arrived at my studio a week later with an oversized diamond necklace in his hand. If they were in fact diamonds...but you know, I bet they were real. I wouldn't put it past him.

\-----

 **BONO** : I invited you to come to New York with me that week before rehearsals began. A whimsical day trip, you know?

 **EDGE** : Invited? More like ordered. You would not take no for an answer.

 **BONO** : Correct.

 **EDGE** : ...Are you sure about this, B? How much do we want to say here?

\-----

_Edge whispers something unintelligible to Bono, who shrugs and says, "She's alright with it--how else are we gonna tell the story?" Edge regards him silently. This kicks off a staring contest that a grinning Bono wins before the two dissolve into nervous laughter. "Take it away, then," Edge says, leaning back._

\-----

 **BONO** : Okay, well, first-- _first_ \--I wanted to see if this, _if Edge_ , were within the realm of possibility. It was an experiment, a challenge for my new persona. And if it gave Anton a chance to expand his artistic parameters and show his excellent work in a blue chip art gallery in New York City, so much the better.

 **EDGE** : That spur-of-the-moment trip was a ludicrous idea. I had a dozen good reasons to say no, but...

 **BONO** : You were alone and overworked. And you can't say no to me. At least not that day. After that, though--

 **EDGE** : I tell him no all the time.

 **BONO** : Someone's got to. Anyway, I bamboozled this one into getting on a plane, and we had a few drinks and some laughs. It was nice to see him relaxing (in his way). I was engaging in a few low-level, rudimentary flirtations.

 **EDGE** : Such as?

 **BONO** : I don't remember. You were being your usual sphinxlike self, writing things on a quad-rule pad and staring at my wrists and such. We landed and were deposited into a subzero, permafrost nightmare of a city, just in time for Anton's opening reception.

 **EDGE** : We were outside for approximately ten seconds.

 **BONO** : Anton's show was a selection of his greatest hits: monumental, black and white portraits of supermodels and musicians, and in an obscure side gallery he had nine pictures of me. I made sure Edge saw them while I held court with said supermodels and musicians in the main room. A fun little outing. Which one was your favorite, Reg?

\-----

_"All of them involved a certain amount of sexual ambiguity and thinly veiled S &M elements," Edge says, flipping through some photos on his phone. He selects one and passes the phone to me. A shirtless Bono sits in a chair, his head tilted back and to one side. A pair of unknown hands fasten a spectacular diamond necklace around his neck, pulling it taut. His expression is euphoric as the long, spiky diamonds bite into his skin. "Show off," Edge mutters to Bono. _

\-----

 **BONO** : What can I say? It was an exhibition and I'm an exhibitionist. You'll note that this is a color photograph and therefore a real departure for our dear Anton.

 **EDGE** : Yes. The fact that he used color film makes this photo notable.

 **BONO** : Those photos were never published. Our record label was uncomfortable with them, and I didn't push. They were at the gallery for a month or so, and you either saw them there or you didn't. Unless you are the Edge, who owns prints of all of them and can peruse them at his leisure.

 **EDGE** : The photos pushed some buttons he must have guessed I had. It was one elaborate stunt that must have been months in the making. It was a blatant come-on. I had to hand it to him.

 **BONO** : Oh, you absolutely handed it to me.

 **EDGE** : Not exactly.

\-----

_Bono notices a tag sticking out from the neck of Edge's t-shirt. He reaches over and tucks it back in._

\-----

 **BONO** : We stayed at the Plaza, just one or two bone-chilling blocks away. I had reserved a suite of rooms that was over-the-top for even me. But we had our own bedrooms. In case you were wondering. This happened during those golden years when my metabolism and my sweet tooth were loving partners who worked hand in hand. They've since become bitter enemies. But back then if I wanted to devour let's say a late-night mountain of miniature cream puffs, I could do so without paying the price later. Remember when we could do things like that?

 **EDGE** : So he got room service to fetch that insane dessert for us.

 **BONO** : Ahh, youth.

 **EDGE** : We were gorging on that and talking, and one thing led to another, and we were kissing.

 **BONO** : Hold the fuck up, Edge. I could write, I don't know, three thousand words about what went on in your "one thing led to another."

 **EDGE** : How much space does Rolling Stone plan to devote to this story of ours, by the way?

\-----

_I inform Bono and Edge that Rolling Stone is prepared to devote the bulk of the magazine to them or create an entire special edition if necessary. Or even a book. We are on board for whatever they want to tell us._

\----

 **BONO** : In that case. We sat in dim light and talked about the photos and looked out at an icy Central Park. The bare trees were sparkling like black diamonds, but we were warm, and I could feel a new current between us coming online. Couldn't you?

 **EDGE** : Yes. Machines waking up, lights blinking on, circuitry that had been installed some fifteen years before finally coming to life, a hypnotic hum filling our heads...

 **BONO** : And that hum said, "Keep going. It's not wrong."

 **EDGE** : "It's not."

 **BONO** : "You will figure out how to deal with this, but first you have to see what it is."

 **EDGE** : It was a sacred moment you're lucky to feel even once.

 **BONO** : I would give up years of my life if I could go back there and revisit that night whenever I wanted to.

 **EDGE** : And the beautiful thing about it was...we were aware of what was going on as it happened. We were walking together into the inevitable.

\-----

_Bono looks at Edge and caresses the side of his face._

\-----

 **BONO** : We were walking together into the bathroom first, though.

 **EDGE** : He'd noticed I had a little kit with some scissors and things, and he asked me to cut a couple of pieces of hair that were in his eyes and bothering him.

 **BONO** : Oh they bothered me so very much, and this was nothing I could take care of on my own. I was actually kind of proud of myself for coming up with that idea. I just wanted him to touch me.

\-----

_Edge places his hand on Bono's knee._

\-----

 **BONO** : I wanted him to touch me in a way that walked that elusive line between innocent and sexual. I wanted him to know he had permission to do it even though I was married, and maybe, I hoped, it would lead to more. I wanted it to seem irresistible. Destined. Ineluctable.

 **EDGE** : Nice adjectives, B.

 **BONO** : A perfect idea.

 **EDGE** : It was almost too perfect.

 **BONO** : It worked. Two little half-inch snips meant that you were standing very close to me, touching me, and studying me with those eyes of yours for one divine minute.

 **EDGE** : We were breathing the same air.

 **BONO** : No, we weren't breathing. I wanted to extend the moment, but what else could we try within that realm of technically-mundane things men can do with each other? I thought, _scissors: razor_.

 **EDGE** : Hell-bent on torturing me, weren't you?

 **BONO** : I'd do it again in a heartbeat. I asked him to shave my face, half-expecting him to refuse. I was genuinely surprised when he didn't say no.

 **EDGE** : The atmosphere in that little room was so sexually-charged I felt hypnotized. I didn't want to break the spell.

 **BONO** : I mean, when you really think about it, how is the act of one man shaving another man's face an even remotely acceptable thing to do? One man is dominant; the other is submissive and utterly vulnerable, and he's being handled in this alternately tender and potentially violent way--I trusted you not to cut me, Reg. Not to mention the heat and the steam and the eye contact and the nonverbal communication...and yet it goes on every day in every city of the world and no one blinks an eye.

 **EDGE** : You are preaching to the choir, B.

 **BONO** : You kissed me when you were finished.

 **EDGE** : I couldn't resist. Your expression reminded me of the first gig we played where you received more love from the audience than you gave. Your eyes were wide as we left the stage, and you looked back at the screaming crowd with a sense of wonder and need. "That was a gift from your mother," I told you. You were looking at me in the same way that night, with wonder and need, and I had to kiss you.

 **BONO** : We kissed, and we stood up and kissed again. And this wasn't us kissing each other as friends. It wasn't a band-mates-at-the-end-of-a-gig thing. It was sexual and it was real and it was fucking delicious. A page had been turned, and there was no un-turning it, and we both knew it.

 **EDGE** : Not knowing what else to do, we retreated to our respective rooms and attempted to sleep. Even though I felt like I had been awake for days, I couldn't shut down the civil war rumbling in my brain, and I knew if I was having trouble, so was he. It would only be a matter of time before he'd be standing beside my bed, and I'd need to have a strategy in place.

\-----

 **ALI HEWSON** : I realized this tour would involve an unprecedented level of excess. Gone were the days of Bible study and serious reflection during their time off. I wasn't sure if they'd be able to handle it, and I would watch it take its toll on Adam. If Edge were a different kind of person, he would have been vulnerable as well. I'm glad Bono was with him. And vice versa. They've always looked out for each other. I have never been a jealous person, but over the years if I felt a twinge here or there, I had ways of dealing with it. When Christy and Naomi and the other girls joined them on the road, for example, I found ways to materialize and befriend them. They actually liked me more than the band, so I felt comfortable knowing they posed no threat to me. Women in general are not competition. I know why they love him; I get it. Edge has never felt like a threat to me either, not exactly, but his relationship with Bono was clearly a different animal. He could be something to Bono that I couldn't, and that was difficult to face.

\-----

 **BONO** : How long did I manage to stay away?

 **EDGE** : A couple of hours, maybe? Enough time for me to come up with some...rules. I knew if Mr. Instant Gratification over here had his way, things would escalate at a dangerous pace. We needed to be smart about this. I needed to exercise some restraint.

 **BONO** : A Herculean level of restraint.

 **EDGE** : Enough for both of us.

 **BONO** : So when I inevitably crept into your room...

 **EDGE** : I believe I won an Oscar for Attempting to Be Asleep that year. I wanted to see what you'd do.

 **BONO** : I tried waking him up in a variety of annoying ways and failed. I kissed his forehead and was considering leaving when he pulled me down, and we were kissing again. He pinned my arms behind my back and laid down the law: _only kissing_.

 **EDGE** : I had to keep his hands away from me.

 **BONO** : Only made it sexier, Reg.

 **EDGE** : My reasoning was, _We already kiss each other: established fact. This is not that different. No new lines are being crossed. Technically._

 **BONO** : Emotionally, though? Jesus Christ. During those two hours, you had taken it upon yourself to become the dominant partner. What I feel with you is so divergent from what I feel with Ali. Just two totally different things. On some level, it didn't seem like I was cheating on her the way it would have if I were with another woman. You know? And anyway, at that point we were only kissing. Apparently I fell asleep and you continued to only-kiss my arm and my back.

 **EDGE** : We drove through the park on the way to the airport the next morning. The sun was shining, and shards of ice fell from the trees and shattered on the pavement around us. Still going with the "we kiss each other casually anyway and no one cares" mindset, which was comforting yet flawed, we decided there was no need to trouble Ali with it. At least not yet. If one of us wanted to back out or if nothing further came of our night together, we were going to be fine. Still friends, no hard feelings. We had a foundation. A shaky one, but a foundation just the same.

 **BONO** : Hard not to feel like a complete scumbag upon returning to my home and my beautiful girls...and yet. Was a corner of my heart preparing a place for Edge? A permanent residence with a commanding view of, say, my lungs and anything else he could possibly desire? Of course it was.

 **EDGE** : I had a few days to figure out how to deal with this while we were on tour. If things were going to escalate, they would have to go slowly.

 **BONO** : Excruciatingly slowly.

 **EDGE** : You can do so much within the realm of only-kissing.

 **BONO** : One night he made me stand in front of him while he studied me. Then he had me turn around and stared at me some more while I looked at the bed. And that was it. Another time he was on a couch, and he had me fix him a drink and sit quietly on the floor beside him. His current plans made me imagine his future plans for me. What a mind-fuck, Edge. What a minimalistic mind-fuck.

 **EDGE** : In our early relationships--at least in mine--we had to deal with the consequences of too much, too soon. I needed this to be completely different for Bono because I had no intention of replacing Ali. I wanted to become something altogether new to him. He submitted to me with remarkable ease, and I was concerned that I was becoming obsessed with him.

 **BONO** : It was this gradual erotic dance. We were exploring uncharted territory. We spent two whole months only-kissing. Eventually we added some hands. And then we hit one milestone. And ultimately the next one months later. I was-- _I am_ \--in awe of him. There is simply no one else even remotely like him.

 **EDGE** : People never talk about the endless boredom you face when you're a band on tour. I kept him very busy.

\-----

 **ALI HEWSON** : I began to suspect something was happening with Bono and Edge a few months into the tour, just based on some phone calls that seemed a bit off. And later that summer when the tour took a month-long break, Edge seemed awkward and oddly deferential to me. Bono was overjoyed to reunite with me, though, and we took off together for a couple of weeks to reconnect. He was more attentive to me than ever before, and I decided my mind must have been playing tricks on me. After the tour resumed, Bono seemed strange on the phone again. But I had my own distractions to deal with, too, and I didn't confront him about it until that September. We had spent the bulk of that year multiple time zones apart. He played a liar with ease onstage, but I've always been able to read him like a book, even when he wasn't with me. He claims I have eyes that can see right through him, and I knew we needed to be honest with each other sooner or later. But I'm getting ahead of myself here.

\-----

 **BONO** : I spent untold hours asking myself this question: what is cheating? Being with Edge has never felt like it. It feels right, undeniably right. Does the human heart contain a finite amount of space? I have four children, and I love them equally. There's room for Edge and Ali in my heart, and I say this with the full knowledge that I don't deserve either of them. But I do need each of them for different reasons. And Edge was revealing questions I'd had about myself that only he could answer.

\-----

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : If ZooTV was Bono's house, Edge was that kid down the street who was always getting invited over.

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : Oh yeah, they had lots of sleep-overs.

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : I think they even had a nightly "I will fuck with you" song. As the tour progressed, Bono made Edge his visual foil and a sort of lust receptacle.

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : [laughs] "Lust receptacle?" I thought B was the lust receptacle and Edge was the one who got to--never mind.

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : [laughs]

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : [high-fives Adam]

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : You see, we watched those two for 157 shows.

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : (You were there for 156 shows, Ad.)

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : I will never live that down for as long as I live.

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : Nope!

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : And with this show Bono was _Bono_ by a factor of ten. It was his job to be obnoxious with Edge. And me too, of course.

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : That damned tart knew enough to stay the fuck away from me.

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : Whenever those two interacted in a blatant kind of way, the screams from the audience shifted.

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : There was a certain contingent of women (and men) who went absolutely apeshit. Along with some uncomfortable what-the-fucks.

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : Edge's reactions to Bono were a revelation. Because for once he was reacting to him. A sidelong glance, a knowing shrug, prolonged eye contact, probable in-jokes, occasional stand-offs, pornographic mic sharing, lip biting, actual smiles.

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : Christ, you really studied them.

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : You know, in between all the drinking and recreational drugs and beautiful women, I took a passing interest in our band.

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : How about _Trying To Throw Your Arms Around the World_? A song as interminable as its title.

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : For the uninitiated, this was the song where Larry and I did all the heavy lifting while an audience member--usually a lovely young woman--was invited onstage to videotape Bono and Edge as they sang together and slow danced and drank champagne for about twenty-three minutes.

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : They could have at least shared it with us.

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : I always thought, "How obvious can they be?" But no one ever called them on it. And this was before I knew what was really going on with them.

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : When we learned, they were almost a year into it.

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : I walked in on them in the studio.

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : I remember you sitting me down to tell me, dead serious, and I braced myself for earth-shattering news. Then you told me that Bono and Edge were having some kind of love affair, and I was surprised but relieved it wasn't something tragic. Because this wasn't tragic.

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : Slightly awkward, yes. Tragic, no.

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : It really just made me want to protect them.

\-----

 **ALI HEWSON** : Edge claims territory in Bono's soul that I do not seem to require or don't have access to. There is a part of him that needs to be dominated. He finds comfort in being controlled instead of remaining in charge as he always is. And to put it in more basic terms, sometimes he simply wants to be with a man. I'm not saying it wasn't painful to begin to accept this. It was at times. But why should I-- _how could I_ \--force him to disregard an entire facet of his sexuality and his very being, especially when he wants to be with someone we both love? [Ali takes a sip of water and beams at her daughter Eve, who has just entered the room.] Edge gives Bono something I just don't have.

 **EVE HEWSON** : [laughs] Oh my god, Mom. Did you hear what you just said?

 **ALI HEWSON** : [laughs]

 **EVE HEWSON** : [rolls her eyes] Yeah, Edge totally gives him something she doesn't have.

 **ALI HEWSON** : [kisses her daughter and laughs]

\-----

 **EDGE** : Remember that first tour when the flu was going around, and eventually all of us caught it?

 **BONO** : Are you talking about that time on the bus when I took care of you?

 **EDGE** : I was feeling feverish and homesick and coughing like crazy, and we had an overnight ride from Denver to...somewhere in Texas. You kept pushing hot tea on me and cough drops that were glorified red candy. You tried to make me comfortable and kept shushing everyone. Really all I needed was some company, and you were that, too. We drove through an area that had recently been hit by a blizzard.

 **BONO** : The first blizzard we had ever seen.

 **EDGE** : The snow was piled so high it seemed like we were driving down a hallway in places, and through a lunar landscape in others, with these astonishing drifts that curled and twisted into countless abstract shapes. Wind is the most incredible sculptor.

 **BONO** : You were shivering and complaining that looking at the snow was making you feel even colder, so I tried to get you to imagine that the drifts were something else, like waves on a warm California beach, or the curves of a woman's body, or even those little meringue cookies your mother made that I loved so much.

 **EDGE** : Then you kind of went silent and pushed my hair off my forehead and dragged a finger down my face, tracing shapes. When I woke up later, the snow had been replaced by grasslands. The sun was rising and those low hills were a warm, Van Gogh gold. You opened your eyes and said something about how all that dead grass was still beautiful, and if I used my imagination maybe the landscape could resemble sand dunes. I told you the grass wasn't dead. It was just dormant, with new green shoots organizing below, ready to grow and take over.

 **BONO** : Yes. It was just dormant.

 **EDGE** : New things were ready to take over.


	6. L'amour

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It just...keeps...going!
> 
> In this chapter I introduce a couple of key players: Paul McGuinness and Morleigh Steinberg. Morleigh is almost entirely my creation. There aren't a lot of articles or interviews with her, so I turned her into someone I thought my version of Edge would love. I'm also starting a couple of chapters where I discuss how the inner circle reacted to Bono and Edge's complicated relationship. More to come. :)
> 
> Eve's tornado remark came from Dan Harmon's podcast, although it had nothing to do with Bono or any other person. It was just a funny thing to say about a tornado. Also the stars-orbiting-each-other idea came from an ancient fic by water hyacinth, I think. It's been so long, you guys. At the time they didn't officially exist. As of 2012, they exist, and I wanted Edge to talk about them some more. :)
> 
> Thanks for reading, sharing, commenting, and supporting this. It's a lot of work. Fun work, but work. Speaking of work, mine is about to pick up in a major way soon, so please be patient with me. Thanks, my dears.

([photo](http://imgur.com/OHlqrlS))

 

 **BONO** : So. I feel the need to be completely transparent about when we were being selfish jerks...from the end of January until about mid-June in 1992, yes?

 **EDGE** : Correct. Jerks.

 **BONO** : Then we had a couple of weird, semi-jerk months at home before the tour started up again in America in August. Jerks for that month, too. At least I was. You had become increasingly uncomfortable with the situation that summer and pressured me to tell Ali. But I could never figure out how or when. I kept waiting for the right moment, as though such a thing existed. I was also completely afraid of what her reaction might be, of course.

 **EDGE** : To be fair, Bono and I were under the influence of some incredible substances at the time. Oxytocin, dopamine...

 **BONO** : We still are.

 **EDGE** : I admit I have a problem.

 **BONO** : Maybe this is why I've never felt the need to take drugs. I was already on them for most of my adult life. And because of them I could rationalize my deviant behavior with ease when Edge and I fell in love. At least to myself. "We were only kissing." But of course. No big deal.

 **EDGE** : It sounds so lame now, doesn't it?

 **BONO** : But we existed in a glistening erotic haze. One blindingly sublime experience after another. Temporary--permanent--insanity thanks to...what substances, the Edge?

 **EDGE** : Oxytocin and dopamine.

 **BONO** : Near-overdoses of drugs we had been sampling since we were sixteen.

 **EDGE** : You were so dazzling I could barely stand it.

 **BONO** : Oh. And you: my male god. That tour insulated us from home and nearly everyone else. We were part of a strange--yet increasingly familiar--self-contained system that moved from one foreign city to another. We were inside its core.

 **EDGE** : You know, you and I are a binary system.

 **BONO** : ...Yes?

 **EDGE** : Two stars that orbit each other.

 **BONO** : Go on.

 **EDGE** : It happens when stars are formed in close proximity, and they immediately begin to circle each other. Powerful magnetic activity binds the two together.

 **BONO** : (How could I not love him, I ask you?)

 **EDGE** : Then when we came home for that break...well, it always takes a few days to get used to it.

 **BONO** : It's like being on a train all day, and then you get off, but for a while it seems like your surroundings are still rushing by.

 **EDGE** : You coped with the break much better than I did. I felt like I had spent half a year on the International Space Station--

 **BONO** : (His dream job, obviously.)

 **EDGE** : --and suddenly I was back on earth and feeling the after-effects of long-term weightlessness. I had lost any sense of balance I used to have regarding this man and immediately went into withdrawal. And then there was the jealousy. You seemed fine in comparison, probably because despite everything you had missed Ali.

 **BONO** : I had, of course, but I felt bad for you, alone once again. And I may have done a bit of overcompensating for the guilt I felt around Ali, and I worshiped that woman like the goddess she is.

 **EDGE** : The beautiful planet who orbits you.

\-----

 **EVE HEWSON** : What else did you tell them?

 **ALI HEWSON** : I said your father is like a tornado.

 **EVE HEWSON** : Well, he is like a tornado...except he's a tornado that _builds_ houses.

 **ALI HEWSON** : Oh, that's even better!

 **EVE HEWSON** : So where did you leave off?

 **ALI HEWSON** : I was just about to bust him.

 **EVE HEWSON** : Oooh...

 **ALI HEWSON** : I had arranged for you and Jordan to be with your grandparents that night.

 **EVE HEWSON** : You sent us away just so you could confront him? He must have been terrified!

 **ALI HEWSON** : I rarely if ever play the wife card. But that time I did. He got on a plane immediately after their final performance in Yankee Stadium. I didn't even have to ask. I just had...a tone, and there were tears. I didn't come right out and say why, but he knew I was struggling. I had been alone with my thoughts for a month after that summer break. We had to talk.

 **EVE HEWSON** : So you picked him up at the airport, and...

 **ALI HEWSON** : ...he was a mess, like he hadn't slept in days. His face was positively ashen. Frankly, so was his breath. And yet it was such a relief to see him, and I couldn't stop myself from falling into caretaker mode. I drove us home in the rain--chit chat dissolving into awkward silence. I gave him a chance to clean up. I was sitting in the living room peeling an orange in the dim afternoon light when he came in, and he stretched out on the couch beside me and put his head in my lap. I could feel his wet hair soaking into my jeans as he looked up at me sadly. I had about four different conversational strategies prepared, and I still wasn't sure which one to use. But when I opened my mouth and watched him curl into a fetal position, I thought, "Why make this more difficult than it has to be?"

 **EVE HEWSON** : Oh Mom...you poor things.

 **ALI HEWSON** : Do you want to be him? Just say yes to everything I ask you, okay?

 **EVE HEWSON** : Sure, okay. I do a great Dad. Not that this will come across in print, but--

 **ALI HEWSON** : I assure you all: she is uncanny. Alright, so we're on the couch. He looked up at me and said he needed to tell me something, and I said, "I think I know what it is. He loves you."

 **EVE HEWSON** : Oh, um. "Yes."

 **ALI HEWSON** : "You love him."

 **EVE HEWSON** : "Yes."

 **ALI HEWSON** : "You love me."

 **EVE HEWSON** : "Yes."

 **ALI HEWSON** : "You are in love with me."

 **EVE HEWSON** : "Yes."

 **ALI HEWSON** : "He is in love with you."

 **EVE HEWSON** : "Yes."

 **ALI HEWSON** : "And you are in love with him."

 **EVE HEWSON** : "Yes." Oh god, Mom.

 **ALI HEWSON** : And I just said, "I know."

 **EVE HEWSON** : Wow.

 **ALI HEWSON** : When we decided to get married, we knew we had to give each other the freedom to be ourselves. I think one of the most romantic things you can do as a couple is be honest with one another. And from that day on, that's what we've been.

 **EVE HEWSON** : So it was just that easy.

 **ALI HEWSON** : Of course not. But it wasn't as difficult as you might think. If anything, our bond has strengthened. He loves me more than ever.

 **EVE HEWSON** : People always ask me what your secret is, how you've stayed together for thirty-whatever years and yet you still seem so in love, and I'm like, "If you only knew."

 **ALI HEWSON** : Well, now they know.

\-----

 **EDGE** : After Bono and Ali had their discussion, I felt like we could all at least breathe again. I wouldn't see her until around Christmas, when we were on another break. In the meantime, we talked with each other on the phone a few times regarding...I guess we've been calling it The Arrangement.

 **BONO** : Reg, was I privy to any of these discussions even though I begged to listen in?

 **EDGE** : No. This was between Ali and me.

 **BONO** : Here's what the arrangement is: two against one at all times.

 **EDGE** : Very funny. It was vital for us to trust each other and to come to an understanding that seemed reasonable. Did you know there's a term for the partner of your partner? I looked it up last night.

 **BONO** : No.

 **EDGE** : Metamour. Ali is my metamour. Morleigh is yours.

 **BONO** : Huh!

 **EDGE** : Over the years Ali went from merely sanctioning my relationship with you to actively encouraging it. She and I have known each other forever, of course, so it wasn't hard for us to understand what attracts you to both of us. We share a lot of the same attributes, but our differences and the way we share them with you are what makes this strange dynamic work. And it was of utmost importance to me that Ali's needs were met. Luckily our lives are organized in such a way that it's obvious how our time needs to be divided. When we're home, that's her time. When we're on the road, that's my time. Incredibly, this is almost exactly a 50-50 split.

 **BONO** : And then there's the _Ain't No Mountain High Enough_ clause. My idea.

 **EDGE** : Emotional crises or other exceptional situations are treated very seriously. If you were with me, but Ali needed you for any reason, I'd let you go. Same with me if you were with Ali. We also build in little vacations during long periods when we're apart. We're fortunate to have the means to make this happen wherever we are in the world and whenever it's necessary. And no one has ever abused this.

 **BONO** : Not even me.

 **EDGE** : We all love and respect each other, but none of this would work without Ali's grace and understanding. She is the fulcrum.

 **BONO** : Angels, both of you. Once I realized The Arrangement could work, I felt utterly complete and just...joyous. I wanted to tell the entire world, of course, but this was 1992.

 **EDGE** : We needed to keep this quiet.

\-----

 **PAUL McGUINNESS** (manager of U2, 1978-2013, via Skype): I found out about Bono and Edge after Adam and Larry did. Was I surprised? Not in the slightest. Anyone who truly knows them can sense their profound connection. It was only a matter of time. Their relationship has helped make U2 a musical force to be reckoned with, and it is probably the most important mind-meld in music history since Lennon-McCartney, although I'm not an impartial judge. The world was a very different place twenty-five years ago, and for obvious reasons I knew I would have to do everything I could to ensure their privacy and safety. Fortunately our tours create a cloistered environment where the band is surrounded by a family-like inner circle. Fewer than two dozen unimpeachable, fiercely loyal people ever truly knew about Bono and Edge. And as for me, I was glad to see Bono and Edge so happy, but I wondered if they were merely going through a passing phase. Would it last a year? Two? Maybe it would be a volatile, off-and-on relationship. Maybe a breakup would be devastating for the band. Or maybe...maybe it would last. It was my job to formulate strategies for all of those scenarios.

\-----

 **BONO** : Sometimes I've tried to imagine what would happen to us if we had regular jobs. What if we were teachers, for example? What if I were the creative writing teacher and I fell in love with the chemistry teacher down the hall?

 **EDGE** : I'd rather teach physics.

 **BONO** : Okay, the _physics_ teacher down the hall. And we're both married and our wives are okay with us being together. What if people found out? Devastating. We'd lose our jobs, probably a lot of our friends, and who knows what else?

 **EDGE** : Our secret had the potential to drastically alter the lives of so many--literally hundreds of people who work for us, not to mention our families and our children.

 **BONO** : So alright. Let's keep our private lives private, for god's sake. A secret can be incredibly sexy when it's new. For once life on the road was not a monastic crucible for us. We were men in their prime with a gleaming new secret. Telling it would have been thrilling then--fuck, it's thrilling now. I know I've already said way too much, but...oh Reg, don't you love this rush of dopamine? And the oxycodone.

 **EDGE** : Nope! Oxytocin.

 **BONO** : Haha, of course. Mmm, delicious.

\-----

_Bono stretches and fills three glasses with water from a nearby pitcher. Edge's phone begins buzzing, and he checks it._

\-----

 **EDGE** : It's Morleigh. (Thanks, B.) She's been listening for a while.

 **BONO** : She has?

 **EDGE** : Since I showed that photo of you. Want me to put her on speaker?

 **BONO** : Obviously.

 **EDGE** : Hi love.

 **MORLEIGH STEINBERG** (dancer, choreographer, and wife of the Edge): Hi guys! I have to run, but I just wanted to say I'm so proud of you.

 **BONO** : What do you think of that new word Edge taught us? You are my metamour. You are my metaMorleigh!

 **MORLEIGH STEINBERG** : And you are my metaBono! Talk to you soon. Love you both.

 **EDGE** : Love you, bye.

 **BONO** : So she's perfect.

 **EDGE** : We're from the same tribe.

 **BONO** : You're from the same _planet._

 **EDGE** : Morleigh officially joined the tour that same August, although she'd been operating in the periphery off and on for a few years.

 **BONO** : She had been teaching me how to move. Because pumping one's right leg in time to the music or running a hand through one's hair--those weren't going to cut it anymore, apparently.

 **EDGE** : You forgot your patented "leaning over with one leg bent" thing.

 **BONO** : My signature move for ten years! Yeah. It took a belly dancer to teach me how to move like a rock star. A caricature of a rock star, anyway. One of the first things she said to me--and I knew immediately we were going to become great friends--she sidled up to me and whispered, "Wanna look taller? I can show you how."

 **EDGE** : You set us up, actually.

 **BONO** : I am a greedy man. I want all the attention, all the love. So I think I deserve a great deal of credit for recognizing that I might not be everything this man needs. About midway through the tour, after months of us orbiting each other in our sexy binary system, I asked him one tipsy night if maybe he wanted a woman. And he didn't say yes, but he didn't say no, either.

 **EDGE** : You took me by surprise with that one.

 **BONO** : Admittedly I asked him that because--in my drunken state--I thought it might be fun to watch him play with one (or two!) blushing little darlings. I was only ten percent serious. But when he didn't say anything, I could tell that, hey, he really did miss having a woman in his life. And not just for sex. He wanted something like what I have with Ali, and who can blame him? Obviously this woman would have to be very special indeed and more than a little open-minded. And she would have to love him almost as much as I do.

 **EDGE** : Who knew she had been right under our noses for months? I had been cordial and businesslike with Morleigh, of course, but she was a member of the small army of people who traveled with us, each responsible for one of the hundred interlocking parts that made ZooTV work. If she dealt with any of us, it was Bono. And Bono was doing a wonderful job of distracting me whenever possible.

 **BONO** : You have to understand: this is a woman who creates choreography based on paintings. Morleigh dances to _paintings_! The Edge had met his match. His other match.

\-----

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : You want us to talk about Morleigh? Uh, okay.

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : Privileged family background, Los Angeles. Grew up with the children of movie stars. She was in the video for _With or Without You._

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : She's actually very funny and creative.

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : Really beautiful. Confident.

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : She gave up a life in sunny California to live with us in Dublin.

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : Dublin!

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : Woman enough to deal with the considerable geeky bullshit that goes hand-in-hand with being Mrs. The Edge.

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : Exactly.

\-----

 **MORLEIGH STEINBERG** (via Skype): Like anybody else my age, U2 were part of the soundtrack of my young life. I remember watching their early videos, the ones where Bono was hopping around like a nervous puppy, and I thought to myself, "This man needs help." Who knew that years later I'd be the person doing it? Bono is self-effacing and charming when he knows he is out of his depth, and we developed a humorous, breezy rapport right away. When I was asked to join their massive tour and perform during Mysterious Ways every night, I jumped at the chance. Who wouldn't?

Edge had always reminded me of Bambi. You know, Disney's Bambi? The giant head, the fragile-seeming arms and legs, the shy, watchful eyes? I was intrigued by the dynamic between Edge and Bono, both on and off stage. Obviously a very hot wire connected them, but they were also bound by their decades of unique, shared experiences. Watching them from afar as they sat together laughing...they were like particularly adorable salt and pepper shakers, and I just wanted to push them together until they touched. You know? Then one day, seemingly out of the blue, Bono asked me what I thought of Edge. It was so cute, like we were passing notes in grade school. He invited me to join them for lunch, and then dinner, and then every meal. I found myself sitting right beside the adorable salt and pepper shakers, and they were indeed touching, and the salt shaker really seemed to like me, and I'm gonna shut that metaphor down for now because it's getting weird.

\-----

 **EDGE** : She moves through spaces so gracefully. Her entire body is her instrument, and she never stops honing her skills. Just watching her swaying back and forth, soothing a crying baby is beautiful. Watching her leaning against a kitchen counter while she waits for her toast to pop up is beautiful. She was raised by a tolerant and indulgent family who encouraged her fearlessness. She is exactly who she wanted to be when she grew up.

 **BONO** : She suspected something was going on with us from the start, and once we saw that she and Edge were becoming more than friends, we told her.

 **EDGE** : She was fascinated with the idea of us, and she wanted details.

 **BONO** : Ali--not quite as interested in the details. But supportive, of course.

 **EDGE** : When Morleigh has questions, I answer them. I always have. She has a sense of humor about us. In fact she teases us mercilessly, and it's always been remarkably easy with her. It's like looking in a mirror, but the refection is infinitely better than anything I'm used to seeing. My world became much richer once she appeared. I said if she stayed with me, her life would become complicated, but she would want for nothing. Our life together is peaceful and filled with her light. She's as happy watching a two-hour documentary on wasps as she is sitting in silence and staring out at the ocean. Before the children came, we'd spend our days at home working on our personal obsessions, often not saying a word to each other for hours. Then we'd make eye contact and she'd say, "I love our life. Our bizarre life."

 **BONO** : Her attitude regarding your divorce-limbo was similarly generous.

 **EDGE** : Exactly. I couldn't marry her, but she wanted to be with me anyway. She's a free spirit, sure, but she's resilient in difficult situations. It took me a long time before I was able to refer to her as what she was: my lover.

 **BONO** : Now, see, I adore that word. "Lover" is so fucking sexy.

 **EDGE** : But it stings a bit when it seems like a step down from "wife."

\-----

 **MORLEIGH STEINBERG** : Yes, ugh, I am Mrs. The Edge. Can you blame me for keeping my name? Part of me would have been fine if we'd never been able to marry. In fact, he didn't make an honest woman out of me until years after his divorce was finalized, years after we'd had two children. My choice. In fact, our kids were the catalyst for our wedding, both ours and his girls with Aislinn. They begged us. They can be delightfully old-fashioned for all their sophistication.

I moved to Ireland fairly early on, and I feel like I'll always be a foreigner here. And that's okay. I'm not the kind of person who fits in everywhere she goes. But I began picking up the accent almost immediately, much to my distress. The second I found myself hitting my Ts really hard and describing things as "grand," I knew I was far from home. Whenever I return to California, the accent drops, although everyone who knows me there says they can still hear it, the same way everyone in Ireland tilts their heads like confused dogs when I speak.

But nobody cares about my accent problems. You want to know about Bono and Edge and how it all works for us, don't you? In a word: communication. In another word: honesty. And patience. Tough words like those. We keep each other on our toes, and our reunions are electric. Call me crazy, but I love that my husband--let's just say it--I love that my husband has a husband.

\-----

 **ALI HEWSON** : You've had an unusual childhood, haven't you, love?

 **EVE HEWSON** : You and Dad made sure that we've had as normal an upbringing as anyone could have expected. But with Dad and Edge, well, there are no books for little kids about this. You should have written one. "Eve Has a Mommy and a Daddy and Another Sort-of Daddy and Another Sort-of Mommy." Or something like that.

 **ALI HEWSON** : Edge and your dad were never outwardly demonstrative in your presence, and even if they were it could have easily been explained to you as some kind of band thing. But children are perceptive, and you instinctively knew that something special was going on with them. One by one you came to me, asking about Edge and Daddy. And I always told you the truth. Sometimes you'd ask things like, "Daddy is going away again. Won't he be lonely without us?" I'd say, "He'll be fine. He has Edge." You were able to grasp how that could work and how it could be okay.

 **EVE HEWSON** : That's because we all love Edge. He's cooler than Dad, let's face it. Sorry Dad.

 **ALI HEWSON** : He'd be the first to agree with you.

 **EVE HEWSON** : He'd come over with the best books and toys, and he always had time to hang out, and he never talked down to us. He loves our dad. How could we not love him?

 **ALI HEWSON** : Did anyone ever ask you about them?

 **EVE HEWSON** : No. Isn't that odd? I mean, it's not like kids my age really cared about U2 (sorry again, Dad). And they just assumed that my parents had a regular marriage because that's what you presented to the world, this fairy tale love story, the kind that everyone wants to believe in.

 **ALI HEWSON** : You knew that we had to keep our arrangement private, though.

 **EVE HEWSON** : Yeah. Believe me, I bristled a bit at the secrecy because they are so cute together, but I was never tempted to tell my friends about it. I just wanted to seem normal. But if they would have asked what was going on with Dad and Edge, I was just going to say, "It's a band thing. They're like brothers. Edge is Dad's best friend, and of course they love each other."

 **ALI HEWSON** : Which is the truth. And that's all you would have needed to say.

 **EVE HEWSON** : It's what I told Eli and John [ _Bono and Ali's younger sons -- Ed._ ] to say.

 **ALI HEWSON** : Good girl. And now that everybody knows, what do you think?

 **EVE HEWSON** : I'm so happy for them. I'm so happy for all four of you.

\-----

 **MORLEIGH STEINBERG** : Our time apart is never completely easy. Tiny things can floor me when he's gone. Once I was in a grocery store parking lot, rummaging around in my purse for my car keys, when I pulled out a blue guitar pick. Now, those things litter our house like confetti, but I had no idea how one would have made its way into my purse. Anyway, that day I turned that heart-shaped piece of plastic over and over with my fingers and held it up to the sun, and it turned a glowing turquoise. I was just another sad woman getting choked up over a little scrap her husband had left behind.

And I hate having to put a heavier comforter on the bed after he leaves. I can never seem to get warm enough.

But luckily I came on board just as technology was becoming easier. Edge is among the earliest adopters of any communication advance, so that's wonderful. We were texting each other years before anyone else. He even tests things for Apple. Should I have said that? Well, he does. Yet another cat is out of the bag.

I've always felt like Americans view people on the west coast as lazy. We're the last time zone in North America to wake up while everyone else has been at work for hours. Sleepy, coddled little babies! But I spent my formative years living on a volatile fault line, and with that comes a certain perspective. You can drive yourself crazy waiting for The Big One to hit, or you can live your life. As Edge, Bono, Ali, and I have lived with this secret for so many years, it's been with the knowledge that any day it could be exposed, and life could become very different for us. Instead of feeling paranoid these past twenty-five years, I've taken on more of a shrugging "I guess we'll see" attitude. As time has passed and people have become more accepting of alternative lifestyles, I've felt less worried. And now the men in my life have elected to set The Big One off themselves. I think they're so brave.

\-----

 **BONO** : Do you remember the first non-inner-circle person we came out to?

 **EDGE** : Yes. Mme Rousseau.

 **BONO** : After ZooTV was finally, finally over, Edge and I bought a villa in the south of France, near a town called Eze on the Cote d'Azur. We spent that gorgeous summer of 1994 thinking about repairing it and having lots of fun. One morning I took it upon myself to find food for us, and I quickly got lost walking along Eze's cobblestone streets and old buildings that were dripping with hot pink bougainvillea. I came across a little fruit stand--just the most gorgeous produce--run by a charming elderly woman named Mme Rousseau. And she did not speak a word of English, nor did she care to learn any. But she gave me a bit of brown butcher paper, and I drew a few question marks on it and pointed to our villa, which we could just barely see. She seemed curious about who I was and why an odd little Irishman was living there. While she drew a simple map on another piece of paper to help me get back, I drew a picture of myself with a microphone and some musical notes and stars. And just for fun, I drew you next to me playing your guitar. I put a heart around our faces, and wrote, "L'amour." Then I wrote our names, which she didn't seem to think made any sense. She gave me a devilish smile and tacked my drawing up on a post behind her. She pointed at the drawing of you, then at me, and made the international gesture for "come here." I nodded, gave her an enormous tip, and found my way back to you.

 **EDGE** : We visited her together the next day, and she brought out some perfect strawberries she had held back just for us. "L'amour," she said, looking at us expectantly, and you kissed me. Then she began giving us little homemade treats, and she wouldn't let us buy anything until she was satisfied with our pronunciation of those items.

 **BONO** : She's the reason why my French is impeccable.

 **EDGE** : She treated us with such sweetness and affection. It was tempting to think everyone would react to us the way she did.

 **BONO** : We returned year after year, and we saw to it that Mme Rousseau was well taken care of the rest of her life. She kept that stand until her dying day, of course.

\-----

_Bono raises his glass of water in an impromptu toast, and Edge and I do the same. "To Mme Rousseau," he says. "To l'amour."_

\-----


	7. Mirror

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 6,000 words, folks. I can't tell you how bleary-eyed I am.
> 
> "[His] voice was like a bell" is from Lou Reed's song "Romeo Had Juliet," and the idea of music being about people playing instruments in a room is from Ani di Franco's song "Fuel." Two of my favorite songs. <3
> 
> Very special thanks to my husband who helped me plot parts of this chapter a couple of months ago on the train. He is responsible for--I don't want to spoil it, but a certain non-U2 person gets mentioned repeatedly, and his inclusion was my husband's idea. He also came up with Larry's "They never fucking asked." He has been reading this story as I've written it. He even read the one that preceded it. He is good, giving, and game, that's for sure, and I love him beyond measure.
> 
> Gosh, I hope you like this. Please let me know if you do, and thanks for sticking around. Your support is everything.

([photo](http://imgur.com/YpGk3rh))

 

 **EDGE** : Once Morleigh and I became--

 **BONO** : Lovers.

 **EDGE** : Lovers, the arrangement developed a more pleasing symmetry.

 **BONO** : I admit to feeling a twinge of sadness when that happened. Of course I wanted him all to myself, but that’s not realistic or fair. And any guilt I experienced from spending extended periods of time with Ali during the off-season evaporated.

 **EDGE** : Our bizarre love quadrilateral was complete.

 **BONO** : Except two of the corners weren’t joined by the same kind of line that connects us. I mean, they are very fond of each other, but…

 **EDGE** : Right. It would have been extremely convenient if Morleigh and Ali were open to it, but…

 **BONO** : [laughs] Not gonna happen.

\-----

 **MORLEIGH STEINBERG** : You wanted to know if Ali and I ever…? Oh my god. Sorry, no. A couple of very handsome and very drunk men once asked us if we might entertain the idea, and they were so thoroughly mocked that they never brought it up again. Ali’s beautiful, but she’s not my type, I’m afraid. I might rethink this if she started wearing a beanie, though.

\-----

 **EVE HEWSON** : Dad’s always so weird when he comes home. Understandably so...

 **ALI HEWSON** : It takes him a few weeks to decompress.

 **EVE HEWSON** : It’s like in _Jurassic Park_. You hear a rumbling sound off in the distance, and then you look at a glass of water and see ripples on the surface, and the rumbles get louder and you hear this roar and the next thing you know...Dad’s home.

 **ALI HEWSON** : He will adore that characterization, I’m sure.

 **EVE HEWSON** : Sorry, Dad. Again.

 **ALI HEWSON** : You’re not wrong, of course. And I don’t know what you remember from when you were three years old, but he was very happy to be back and more at peace than I had ever seen him, even if every night at around 8:00 he would burst into song, talk back to the television, kiss mirrors, and so on. Also at that point I was finally able to use my social sciences degree somewhat.

 **EVE HEWSON** : “Somewhat.” Everyone, Mom is being much too modest. She became an anti-nuclear activist, and she went on multiple aid missions to Belarus and Chernobyl. She is fearless. She is a badass.

 **ALI HEWSON** : Oh, listen to you.

 **EVE HEWSON** : Admit it!

 **ALI HEWSON** : I might be a little bit of a badass.

\-----

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : So while Bono and Edge were rolling around on the sand and, like, chasing each other through fields of lavender in the south of France, you and I were actually getting things done.

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : We moved to New York City to study music for a while and record with other artists, and, in my case, stop drinking forever.

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : Proud of you.

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : Proud of us.

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : We even recorded a hit song a year or so later. _Mission Impossible_ theme, perhaps you’ve heard of it? Top ten all over the world? That was us.

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : Sans the other two.

\-----

 **BONO** : After our summer in Eze, Edge and I returned to a life of comfortable, lazy domesticity, and we had time to indulge in some lovely pet projects.

\-----

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : I have nothing to say about that _Passengers_ album, by the way.

\-----

 **BONO** : The _Passengers_ project was the sound of three men giving zero fucks and Larry Mullen rolling his eyes the entire time while Brian Eno worked his considerable magic.

 **EDGE** : Probably not our finest hour, but I’m proud of at least a third of those songs. And your voice was unbelievable.

 **BONO** : “Lush and post-coital,” as some people have said.

 **EDGE** : Some people?

 **BONO** : Well, you did that one time, anyway.

 **EDGE** : Oh. Heh, yes.

 **BONO** : One of our songwriting trips.

 **EDGE** : As we mentioned earlier, sometimes we’d take emergency vacations to “work on writing songs.”

 **BONO** : We would return to Eze or New York (always a favorite). We even, ahem, bought a hotel in Dublin. The sexual tension between us builds up during the off-season like a boiling pot on a stove. Every once in a while we have to lift the lid and let some steam escape.

 **EDGE** : And then we just...fall on each other. Inarticulate.

 **BONO** : Desperate.

 **EDGE** : Then the feeling of equilibrium returns. For me the build up is like a humming air conditioner that is always on in the background, and I never realize how loud it is until I shut it off.

 **BONO** : And, you know, _occasionally_ we’d write some lyrics.

 **EDGE** : Sure. We even wrote songs about our songwriting vacations.

 **BONO** : _Staring at the Sun_ , for example. And a number of our old songs have taken on a whole new meaning when viewed through the lens of...us. He’s the “you” in _With Or Without You_. At least that’s the way I sing it now.

 **EDGE** : It was still so new back then. Only a handful of people had any idea about what was going on.

 **BONO** : Suspected, maybe, but knew? Fewer than ten.

 **EDGE** : Our secret was like a beautiful jewel I had wrapped in paper and kept in my pocket. I’d take it out and look at it and wrap it up again. The more I did that, the softer the paper became, until it was almost like fabric, like a worn-out security blanket. I couldn’t imagine the jewel without its wrapping, but as more people learned about us, the more fragile and torn the paper became. Now it’s time to throw the paper away, and I can’t help feeling a little strange about that.

 **BONO** : But now everyone can see the jewel.

 **EDGE** : Yes. It’ll take some getting used to.

\-----

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : When 1996 rolled around, we decided that maybe it was time to reconvene in the studio--all four of us together again, first in Dublin and then in Miami. I was eager to show Bono and Edge my new skills, and I was curious to see what kind of plans they might have had given their situation.

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : And wow, did they ever deliver.

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : They delivered some...incredibly gay ideas. And that was understandable--that was fine--but the fucking drum loops they felt the need to experiment with made me want to throttle them on a daily basis. Along with their insistence that we work on the thing until the last fucking minute. What a fiasco.

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : _Pop_ was an underrated album, though. Interesting if flawed.

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : And then one day I found myself inside a giant disco ball wearing a cowboy costume, and you were a sailor, and this _person_ was teaching us stupid dance moves. Jesus.

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : That was nearly twenty years ago, and yet it seems…

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : Frighteningly vivid.

\-----

 **BONO** : I was a police officer! And you!

 **EDGE** : I was a leather man. I was a gay porn star. A biker? You know, I never really understood what my occupation was in that video.

 **BONO** : Whatever you were, you sold the fuck out of it. I believed in you with all my heart and soul.

 **EDGE** : Stéphane [ _Sednaoui, director of U2’s video for_ Discotheque _, the first single from_ Pop _\-- Ed._ ] called me a super pro.

 **BONO** : I believe he called you a “supaire pro.” Which you were and are and always shall be.

\-----

 **MORLEIGH STEINBERG** : Edge rather sheepishly let me watch a rough cut of the video. “If you object to any of this, it’s out, no questions asked.” And I said, “Oh, I’m sure I’ll have _plenty_ of questions!” The video was hilarious and campy and over the top and nervy, and their interactions were actually pretty hot, I’ve got to say. It was like the video was daring people to ask Bono and Edge what the hell was going on between them.

\-----

 **PAUL MCGUINNESS** : The prevailing attitude toward homosexuality in the mid-90s could be summed up in four words: don’t ask, don’t tell. Remember that? What a world. We spent a solid week trying to figure out a plan for Bono and Edge, and that could be summed up in three words: tell if asked. We were certainly giving people plenty of material from which they could draw: the video for _Discotheque_ , the entire aesthetic for the Popmart tour, Bono and Edge’s interactions on stage, Edge’s handlebar mustache, for god’s sake...it was in-your-face. It was challenging. It was bait.

\-----

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : They were fully prepared to come out to the world in 1997--had anyone asked them about it.

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : And here’s the thing: nobody fucking asked! That has mystified me for literally decades. They have been the most _out_ non-out couple in the world. And yet with that album and tour, we seemed to get the same five questions over and over again. What’s the deal with the lemon?

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : [laughs] Where’d you get the giant screen?

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : The album’s under-performing and the shows aren’t selling out--how does that feel?

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : Those shirts with the drawn-on muscles are really...something.

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : That’s not even a question, but yes, absolutely. Edge actually got this one: _Does Bono have any hobbies?_ “Yeah, having sex with me.”

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : What did he really say?

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : I think he said Bono likes to read a lot.

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : Nicely handled, Edge. I’ve got to say, though, I don’t find myself thinking about that aspect of Bono and Edge’s relationship very often. They’re so much more than two friends of mine who have sex with each other. Their love reminds me of...flowering trees. I notice those once a year, and they’re beautiful and unusual, and they just make me happy, you know? And then the flowers fade and drop off and leaves grow, and the flowering trees blend in with their surroundings. I pretty much forget they’re flowering trees at all until the next time they bloom, and it’s like, oh yeah, what a delightful surprise.

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : I don’t know, Adam. I think about Bono and Edge having sex all the time.

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : [laughs]

\-----

 **ALI HEWSON** : The beginning of the Popmart tour marked the first official “changing of the guard.”

 **EVE HEWSON** : [chuckles] Do you guys have some kind of special handshake or ceremony or whatever?

 **ALI HEWSON** : Of course not. It just happened without any kind of plan. Bono and I met Morleigh and Edge at the airport, and we all said our goodbyes and sort of looked at each other awkwardly. Then Bono and Edge walked away together, and Morleigh and I walked away together. We each looked back, of course, but when all was said and done, it was really quite civilized.

 **EVE HEWSON** : Aww.

 **ALI HEWSON** : I was probably more concerned about how you and Jordan would handle his absence--you’re such daddy’s girls. And Bono was so high-strung and nervous about that tour. They weren’t ready at all, and Edge certainly had his hands full with him. I cried in the car on the way home, of course, but then I always cry. Obviously those goodbyes are never fun.

 **EVE HEWSON** : ...Mom. You're amazing.

\-----

 **EDGE** : The first American shows of the Popmart tour were skaky at best. These weren’t just beginning-of-the-tour jitters. We were seriously under-rehearsed and still learning to play the new songs. Our audience tends to be so forgiving of missteps--I think they find them endearing. But this tour was different.

 **BONO** : The new material was simply not connecting. Even worse: the overriding concept behind the tour was not connecting, either.

 **EDGE** : At least not with American audiences. Some people got it. And as the tour progressed, many people loved it.

 **BONO** : But not everyone. And you know me. I fixated on the empty seats. It’s deeply troubling to start a call-and-response with an audience...who won’t respond.

 **EDGE** : Yeah.

 **BONO** : I’m afraid you bore the brunt of my frustrations on several occasions.

 **EDGE** : Many.

 **BONO** : Many. But you soothed my jangled nerves and were always so patient with me. My beautiful space cowboy.

 **EDGE** : My little fighter.

 **BONO** : And then there was the secret I couldn’t burden you with. Not you, not Ali, not anyone.

 **EDGE** : I wish you would have told us.

 **BONO** : I just didn’t know how. None of the doctors had any definitive answers for me. They just prescribed a lot of fucking “watchful waiting.” But my god, it was _my voice_.

 **EDGE** : He struggled with his voice a lot during that tour.

 **BONO** : It was considerably weaker than before. They thought it might be cancer. Or maybe it wasn’t. But once you hear the word “cancer,” you tend to ignore anything else they say. And your humming air conditioner always running in the background, Edge? That was my cancer scare. A sword of Damocles thrown into an already troubled mix.

 **EDGE** : No wonder you were so stressed.

 **BONO** : Every time I missed a note, every time I lost my voice or was even a little bit hoarse, I thought, well, this is it. Here we go.

 **EDGE** : Obviously it was not cancer. Your vocal problems straightened themselves out eventually, but you were worried about this for years.

 **BONO** : And the passive, thin audiences brought out the worst in me, and I found myself thinking, “Fuck you for not paying attention. I’m not gonna be around forever, you know.” Christ. I don’t know what I would have done without you.

\-----

_Bono is silent for a moment and stares at his hands. Edge touches his lower back. “Wanna take a break? This lilac...monstrosity can’t be doing your back any favors.” Bono nods and Edge looks at me sympathetically. He points in the general direction of a bathroom and mouths, “Five minutes.” Inside the (massive) bathroom: a Frankenthaler, an actual Frankenthaler._

_We reconvene exactly five minutes later in a sitting area with a sweeping view of Eze and the beach. Overstuffed couches and chairs are clad in black leather that is coma-inducingly soft. Edge smiles as he sinks into one end of the couch--clearly it’s the kind of furniture whose luxury you never quite get used to. Bono offers me a plate of macarons (“You know you want one”) before he reclines on the couch, his head resting on Edge’s lap (“You don’t mind, do you? It’s for my back, you see).”_

\-----

 **BONO** : So! Health scares. I had another one around that same time. And it’s something so comparatively minor it’s actually kind of cute.

 **EDGE** : You’re calling glaucoma cute?

 **BONO** : Well, there’s not much I can do about it other than protect my eyes from bright lights. That’s why I wear sunglasses all the time. It’s not just because I’m a douchebag.

 **EDGE** : It’s also to protect the world from these eyes of yours. They are quite dangerous. And for the record, I have an extremely sensitive scalp. That’s why I wear beanies all the time. It’s not just because I’m a douchebag.

 **BONO** : This is a total lie. The world is simply not prepared for how magnificent this man looks without a hat. It’s there for your safety.

\-----

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : The Popmart tour improved the moment we left American soil. International audiences seemed to grasp the irony and the...you know what? I honestly don’t know what we were trying to say, exactly.

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : It was a bunch of dark, heavy songs disguised by this big, sexually ambiguous party that was decorated with ridiculous, _Spinal Tap_ set pieces. What’s not to get?

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : Whatever. We eventually got our shit together and played some pretty good concerts to receptive audiences. Actually some of my favorite shows ever were from that tour.

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : As far as Bono and Edge were concerned, they continued to perform their homoerotic mating dance, and no one asked any questions.

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : They played a mid-show, B-stage acoustic set every night. You and I had a chance to take a break when that happened, and it was just as well because, Jesus Christ, guys. Get a room.

\-----

 **MORLEIGH STEINBERG** : Can we talk about that? It’s strange to be saying this as the wife of one of them. But you know when you’re with two people who are so connected and _just such a team_ that it’s like they’re living inside this bubble? Bono and Edge are always so respectful of my feelings when they’re home. I never feel left out or somehow _less than_. But when they are performing, especially those acoustic songs, you and I and Larry and Adam and everyone in that stadium become 70,000 third wheels. It’s like the whole world falls away for them. They can’t help it. It’s actually kind of spellbinding. No, it is spellbinding. And sexy. The way they look at each other is so...pure. It’s undeniable. It’s love. It’s beautiful.

\-----

 **BONO** : You sang for me in Sarajevo.

 **EDGE** : What a night that was. A lot has been said about that concert: how difficult it was to make happen, how unique and potentially volatile the audience could have been. We expected all kinds of problems, but we had always assumed you would be our singer.

 **BONO** : I woke up on the morning of the most important stop on the tour without a voice. I was horrified. Canceling was not an option. I did everything I could that day to improve the situation, but I was nowhere near one hundred percent at showtime. I was okay for a few songs, but I knew the crowd would have to carry me most of the way. And carry me they did! They were so joyous to have some normalcy in their lives that they forgave my vocal problems and positively roared. By the time we hit _Pride_ , though, I was fading fast, and it was all I could do to simply recite the lyrics in a soft monotone. That chorus is nearly impossible even under the best of circumstances, and I knew I couldn’t sing it. I looked over at you, and you gave me that little “I’ve got this” nod of yours. You and the crowd sang it for me, and your voice was like a bell. I nearly burst into tears.

 **EDGE** : It was my privilege to sing for you. And for heaven’s sake, you were nothing short of heroic that night. During a break he even went backstage to get cortisone injections in his throat to improve things. This man.

 **BONO** : This man.

\-----

_Edge runs his fingers through Bono’s seemingly untouchable hair. “You could talk about it, you know,” Bono says with a grin. “I dare you.” Edge looks at the ceiling and exhales._

\-----

 **EDGE** : When I was a boy, I liked to rearrange my room a lot. I enjoyed waking up and finding myself in a different spot than I was used to.

 **BONO** : That was a good skill to cultivate. Little did you know you’d be waking up in different places your entire adult life.

 **EDGE** : Indeed. My bed was the toughest thing to move, and most of the time I could just barely get it to budge. One day I gave it a big shove, and some kind of screw must have been sticking out from the headboard because it gouged into the plaster wall and made a curved line, kind of a loose, backwards 2. I didn’t want my parents to notice the damage, so I moved the bed in front of it, but I could still touch it through a gap between the mattress and the headboard. Fascinating, right?

 **BONO** : I am transfixed.

 **EDGE** : Sure. So it sounds crazy, but there was something irresistible about that line. I liked to trace my finger over it and feel its sandy roughness. It was strangely calming. Tiny bits of plaster would fall off and collect on the floor, and I thought about erosion and, like, escaping from prison, you know? Where they’re chipping away to create a tunnel just a few bits of gravel at a time?

\-----

_Bono glances at me as if to say, “Can you believe this creature?”_

\-----

 **BONO** : Do go on.

 **EDGE** : I didn’t think about this very much until years later when you did something that reminded me of it.

 **BONO** : It’s the most mundane thing, but it has the power to completely immobilize him. It is my doomsday device. I discovered this in 1997, much to my delight, and just to keep things interesting, I deployed it again in 2006. When it happens, our entire dynamic shifts, if you know what I mean. Come to think of it, Reg, another ten years have passed. Maybe it’s time to do it again…?

 **EDGE** : Despite what we said earlier, you truly hold the keys.

 **BONO** : She’s clearly confused, love. If you won’t tell her, I will. It’s just a handful of syllables.

 **EDGE** : Go ahead.

 **BONO** : He loves it when I have short hair.

 **EDGE** : True.

 **BONO** : I’m so glad this is finally out in the open.

\-----

_Edge traces a finger around Bono’s ear and across the back of his neck. “It’s this line. It’s the same as the one behind my bed.” Bono rolls his eyes and smiles at him fondly._

\-----

 **BONO** : He loves to run his hands up the back of my head when my hair’s short and rough. Then it’s soft on the way back down.

 **EDGE** : I’d do it to the point where that friction made my hands hypersensitive, almost as if they’d been sanded.

 **BONO** : Then you’d touch everything else.

 **EDGE** : Baby.

 **BONO** : We used to make out in that lemon, by the way.

\-----

 **PAUL MCGUINNESS** : Our initial plan to tell if asked was all for naught. And frankly, had they been asked and had they told, it would have created yet another complication on top of an already troubled tour. As Popmart came to a close, though, the band were back at the top of their game. Their confidence had returned, and along with that came the desire to disclose everything and damn the consequences. But then in October…

\-----

 **BONO** : Matthew Shepard.

 **EDGE** : My god.

\-----

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : Matthew Shepard.

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : Fuck.

\-----

 **MORLEIGH STEINBERG** : Matthew Shepard.

\-----

 **ALI HEWSON** : Matthew Shepard.

 **EVE HEWSON** : I don’t remember…

 **ALI HEWSON** : You were too young at the time, love. He was an American college student--openly gay--who had been brutally murdered by a couple of men who thought he was hitting on them. They beat him mercilessly and tied him to a fence post out in the middle of nowhere. They left him there to bleed to death. I think the person who discovered him thought he was a scarecrow at first. His face was covered with blood except for where his tears had washed it away.

 **EVE HEWSON** : Jesus.

 **ALI HEWSON** : It was a tragic hate crime. And a wake-up call.

\-----

 **BONO** : First I felt...just...rage. I wanted to lash out in righteous anger. I was ready to tell the world about us. I’m no stranger to violent threats, and I did not give a fuck about what anybody would do or say to me. But then I thought...this is not just about me. It’s also about three other people I love dearly. It’s about six beautiful children, soon to be seven. It’s about Adam and Larry and Paul and an entire fucking corporation loaded with people I consider to be my extended family. I felt utterly impotent in the face of this. I wanted to talk, but I didn’t want to endanger anyone I loved, so I couldn’t. And if I’m being completely honest about it, I was scared, too. Of course I was.

 **EDGE** : And it’s not like our situation was something that could be easily explained. “We’re gay” is one thing. “We’re not necessarily gay but we are in love and we have sex and we are married and have children with women who are somehow okay with that” is something else. Even with today’s more liberal attitude toward alternative lifestyles (if you want to call this an alternative lifestyle)...I think plenty of people in the LGBT community would would be uncomfortable accepting us, and this is almost twenty years later.

 **BONO** : They won’t accept us because so many of them hate our music, love.

 **EDGE** : [laughs]

 **BONO** : They also hate my fashion sense.

 **EDGE** : What fashion sense?

 **BONO** : I am officially breaking up with you, my darling.

\-----

_Bono raises himself up on his elbows, smiles at Edge, and accepts a kiss._

\-----

 **EDGE** : Only twenty-eight percent of bisexuals ever come out. Did you know that? There’s a certain invisibility attached to us. Many people don’t trust us or know how to categorize us. And of course it’s simply easier to act upon heterosexual urges and let everyone assume that’s all you are. We started to conclude that maybe this was not our fight, at least not yet. We were pushing forty, and as you mentioned, a second wave of children began around that time--two more for each of us.

 **BONO** : I felt like such a hypocrite, of course. I have for many years. Now that our youngest children are teenagers, and now that it might not be quite as controversial to do so, we’re finally talking about it. But back in the late 90s, I felt the need to channel my passion for justice into...something else. That turned out to be debt cancellation. And it evolved into so many other things I’ve already bored your readers with on countless occasions. My celebrity opened certain doors that would have remained closed had this secret of ours been exposed. I know in my heart of hearts that staying in the closet has, perversely, saved lives.

 **EDGE** : Many lives.

 **BONO** : But getting back to 1998...initially my desire to help the world’s most impoverished people was...sublimation.

 **EDGE** : Remarkably effective sublimation.

 **BONO** : As much as I believe in what I've been doing, I’ve never felt completely right about it.

 **EDGE** : Your organizations are so powerful now, though.

 **BONO** : That’s the beauty of it. Any backlash I’ll receive from this interview won’t really matter. ONE and (RED) have become so much bigger than me. I’m not the only one knocking on doors anymore.

\-----

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : The next time we met in the studio, I told everybody that I had a radical suggestion, remember that?

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : Oh yes. One of your better ideas.

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : “I’d like to be in a rock and roll band again, if that’s alright with you guys.”

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : And thus began the _All That You Can’t Leave Behind_ sessions.

\-----

 **BONO** : I tried to write lyrics with more universal themes. I wanted them to suggest the things I couldn’t actually say. And Larry was right: we needed to be a rock and roll band again. We needed to be four people playing instruments in the same room. That concept is as revolutionary now as it was then. And you, my love, were on fire.

 **EDGE** : You really need to come up with a new thing to say about my guitar playing.

 **BONO** : When the Elevation tour began, you and I had been in love for almost ten years.

 **EDGE** : It hadn’t faded. If anything, it had become more densely layered. It was about so much more than sex.

 **BONO** : We celebrated it on stage every night. Secretly.

\-----

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : Once again: could they have been more obvious?

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : The yearning looks, the play-fighting, the mooning over each other at the tip of the heart-shaped catwalk…

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : ...The Edge fucking The Bono with The Guitar. Seriously.

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : You and I exchanged more than a few eye rolls on that tour. But they were very sweet together. That tour was all about love. Love for each other, love for our audience. And post-9/11, it was also about healing and feeling like a family. People were so shaken up. Two hours surrounded by their tribe, everyone happy--I saw more American fans burst into tears on that tour than ever before.

\-----

 **EDGE** : Back then you were a beacon of love and joy in a dark world. You were also a beacon of outrage and heartbreak. You went through so many intense emotions each night that I worried about you. The acoustic set served as a sort of check-in for you and me.

 **BONO** : I needed it.

 **EDGE** : Only four people in the world know what it’s like to be in this band. Our wives see what we go through, but we’re the only ones who truly understand how special and difficult it can be. And in the end, there’s only one you. You’re a vessel, a conduit for our audience’s emotions. The amount of pressure you’re under each night turns you into a diamond. You’re the nucleus. You’re the heart.

 **BONO** : Oh Edge.

 **EDGE:** Immediately after each show, when we were packed into cars and whisked away, you were elated and flying on adrenaline. But when the last photo had been taken and the last hand had been shaken at whatever afterparty we were required to attend, when it was just the two of us in a hotel elevator, you became quiet. You stayed quiet as I held you in the dark, and then...the gasp. The hyperventilation.

 **BONO** : That tour took everything I had. It absolutely drained me. And then there was my father.

\-----

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : During the European leg of the tour, Bono flew home to Dublin each night to stay with his dying father.

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : I’ve always admired him for that. But my god, as if he needed another thing to deal with...

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : It’s no secret that the two of them had a stormy relationship. Bob was a remarkable man, but he was often so cold to Bono, who only sought his love and approval.

\-----

 **BONO** : I never told him about us.

 **EDGE** : He wouldn’t have been able to handle it.

 **BONO** : I wanted him to be in my children’s lives. But that secrecy created another layer of plaster on the already thick wall dividing us. (And not the sexy kind of plaster, Edge.) You came with me when I went home to him. That’s one thing I’ve never given you credit for publicly. Thank you for that. It meant the world to me.

 **EDGE** : I didn’t want you to be alone. Because when you were with him, even when he was in relatively good spirits, you were still very much alone.

 **BONO** : We tried to get some sleep on the plane. Sometimes I wouldn’t stop talking, even though I knew you were exhausted. Other times, yes, the gasping. Our small staff understood and gave us a wide berth. As we approached Dublin, you and I had a drink or two--that was mostly for my benefit--and soon enough I was at my father’s side...my sarcastic, bitter, and occasionally darkly funny father’s side.

 **EDGE** : We got there during the wee hours of the morning--far too late and far too early to go home and spend any kind of quality time with Morleigh, Sian, and Levi. So I hung around Beaumont Hospital, feeling like the proverbial gay college “roommate” whose love could never truly be acknowledged. I dozed in the waiting room or paced the halls. The only restaurant within walking distance was a McDonald’s, and it wasn’t even open. I wandered through the cul-de-sac nightmare surrounding the hospital. I think I watched a few sunrises, but I was so tired they could have been hallucinations. Eventually I thought, _Fuck it, so what if Bob cares?_ I was there for Bob’s son.

 **BONO** : I kept a pad of paper in his room because Dad slept most of the time, and I needed something to do. So I sketched him and tried not to fall asleep while doing so.

 **EDGE** : Those sketches are actually good.

 **BONO** : You say “actually” as if other things I draw might not be so good, but hey, these are _actually good_.

 **EDGE** : They _actually are_.

 **BONO** : Thank you so much. Anyway, the staff had rolled in some kind of cot for me, and Edge’s “fuck it, so what” attitude was contagious. We curled up on that crowded son of a bitch and slept together right in front of my oblivious, dying father on several occasions.

 **EDGE** : Ahh, romance.

 **BONO** : Jesus. After all the nights I spent with him during that summer, I still wasn’t ready for his death. He was awake at the time, and I admit I was hoping for some kind of affection from him before he slipped away. But he stayed in character right up to the end at four in the morning. And his dying words were, “Fuck off. I want to go home.”

 **EDGE** : That line really is _so_ him.

 **BONO** : It was. It was. And I wanted to go home, too, but we had to get back on the plane to play a gig in London fourteen hours later. I sat there and wept on and off for most of the flight, and you were with me, and I thought, “This man is my home.”

 **EDGE** : We finally had a break in September, and one morning you called--by the way, 9/11 would happen less than a week later. You asked me to help you go through Bob’s things. You just wanted to get it over with. I met you at his house, and there wasn’t much left. Bob and Norman [ _Hewson, Bono’s older brother -- Ed._ ] had engaged in some merciless, unsentimental purging before he went to the hospital.

 **BONO** : It was just bare-bones stuff. I took home some opera records. I wasn’t sure what I had expected to find. Certainly not a scrapbook of my clippings, but maybe some pictures of my mother. Nothing. We walked around from room to room. This was not a man who liked to rearrange furniture, so it was hard to really notice things because they’d been there forever. And then in his bedroom: an old, heavy mirror peppered with fly specks. And I knew immediately that I wanted it.

 **EDGE** : We took it down with some effort. Why did everything made back then have to weigh a metric ton? The wall behind it was much brighter and cleaner. We managed to cram it into my car (it wouldn’t fit in his). I folded the back seat down and we slid it in until it was standing mostly upright with part of it between the front seats.

 **BONO** : It was like a wall dividing us.

 **EDGE** : The moulding was dusty, and I thought about how most dust particles are tiny flecks of human skin, and we were probably breathing in the last available bits of Bob. And that was just too weird, so I fixated on the mirror’s ancient wire and wondered if I might have a better hanging device at home. Then I noticed that it was too quiet on the other side of the mirror, and I just said, “I’m here.” And Bono’s hand appeared over the top of the mirror, and I drove the rest of the way to his house holding it, awkward as that was.

 **BONO** : We lugged that heavy motherfucker all the way upstairs to an obscure room filled with old books and antique furniture I can’t bring myself to get rid of. Golden morning sunlight poured in through the windows. Lighting by Caravaggio. Edge and I heaved the mirror up on a table and tipped it back against the wall. We looked at ourselves in a very sad mirror that had spent decades reflecting a bitter old man. Edge kissed me and smiled, and I told him that his was the only true male love I had ever received. And you said…

 **EDGE** : I’m always going to be with you.


	8. The Sun and the Moon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is shorter than my last few. I hit a stopping place that seemed to say "chapter ends here," and I was happy to oblige. Sorry it's taken me longer than usual to post. Work has been crazy. But I think it's safe to say that the next chapter will be the end of this story. Thanks as always for your time, patience, and encouragement. 
> 
> "On some level, it frees you," is from Heartburn by the great Nora Ephron.
> 
> I thought this chapter would be boring, but it made me cry multiple times as I wrote it this afternoon.

[(photo)](http://imgur.com/WwvnM91)

 

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : Okay. Hit album. Amazing tour and we’re back on top again. We _destroy_ at the Super Bowl, and then we get four big Grammys. That was...2003?

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : I think it was 02.

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : Right. 2002. Now, a smart band would try to capitalize on that kind of success and do whatever it would take to keep it going, right? So what does B decide to do? He meets with George W. fuckin’ Bush.

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : Of course. It’s the next logical step.

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : Standing with him and flashing a peace sign for photographers...Jesus Christ.

\-----

 **BONO** : In case your readers were wondering, sometimes it’s not all macarons and Rothkos and lilac loveseats around here. We fight.

 **EDGE** : Occasionally.

 **BONO** : Just like any couple does.

 **EDGE** : So many couples have to deal with the feelings of betrayal and disgust that occur when George W. Bush enters the picture.

 **BONO** : [laughs] And this man-- _this man_ \--is capable of turning a standard silent treatment into a diabolical art form.

 **EDGE** : [looks out the window]

 **BONO** : It can last for an hour, or it can last for days.

 **EDGE** : [examines his fingernails]

 **BONO** : And it doesn’t matter how justifiable your reasons are. “I’d meet with the devil himself if I knew it would mean…”

\-----

_Bono’s voice trails off. He looks up at Edge and tugs gently on his earring. Edge rolls his eyes. Bono winks at me and begins singing to Edge, an indecipherable, cooing song of unknown origin. Edge smiles and caresses his neck. “Adorable fucking pushover,” Bono says._

\-----

 **ALI HEWSON** : His humanitarian work takes a toll on him. Absolutely it does.

 **EVE HEWSON** : He names his wrinkles, you know. Jordan and I are the ones under his eyes, and I think Eli and John are in his forehead. But those two deep ones that go from the corners of his eyes to, like, his temples? Those are Africa.

 **ALI HEWSON** : Which ones am I?

 **EVE HEWSON** : You’re these [runs a finger from her nose to the corner of her mouth]. Of course.

 **ALI HEWSON** : Well, he throws himself into everything he does, with little regard for his health. He is somehow able to shift from artist to activist--from selfish to selfless--often within a couple of hours.

 **EVE HEWSON** : You do not want to see my dad’s calendar. He needs, like, three people to keep track of it and get him where he needs to be. And he drives them crazy because he can’t say no to anyone.

 **ALI HEWSON** : I receive briefings, _actual briefings_ , on the whereabouts of my husband.

 **EVE HEWSON** : The contacts in his phone are seriously out of control. It’s all first names, too. Bernie and Beyonce are right next to each other.

 **ALI HEWSON** : When he was recovering from his accident, that thing nearly drove me out of my mind.

 **EVE HEWSON** : He sees his body as this annoying meat container that carries his brain and mouth around.

 **ALI HEWSON** : Early on, Edge set up some ways for him to communicate with people that didn’t involve him getting on a plane. But face-to-face contact is crucial for Bono. He does it out of respect, and delicate negotiations with important people require a certain amount of charm. Which he has in spades. He’s often said that his celebrity is his currency.

 **EVE HEWSON** : A Skype call is small change. A personal appearance is a hundred dollar bill.

 **ALI HEWSON** : It’s quite amazing to watch heads of state react to him. He takes a genuine interest in everyone, and I’d imagine that’s a rare occurrence in politics. He’s like the sun cutting through the clouds, and when you’re standing in that light of his, you feel special.

 **EVE HEWSON** : I’m gonna tell him you said that.

\-----

 **EDGE** : What percentage of your life has been spent in the sky?

 **BONO** : Ha! I couldn’t guess. I don’t want to know.

 **EDGE** : Let’s say you’ve been on some kind of plane...how about eight hours a week?

 **BONO** : Extremely conservative estimate.

 **EDGE** : For the past thirty years. That’s...give me a minute.

 **BONO** : Look at him. Carry the five, Edge.

 **EDGE** : Shh. 520 days in the sky. Something like a year and a half.

 **BONO** : And you know it’s probably twice that.

 **EDGE** : Three years in the sky.

 **BONO** : Easily.

 **EDGE** : Amazing.

 **BONO** : Teleportation _now_ , Edge.

\-----

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : For the past fifteen years, Bono has been like one of those over-scheduled kids my children feel sorry for. Football practice, then, you know, ballet lessons and Bible study and gymnastics…

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : Gymnastics.

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : And Edge and Adam and I are like, “Aren’t you supposed to be in a band with us? We were gonna meet after school?”

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : Didn’t you come up with the whole “we’re a three-legged table when he’s gone” thing?

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : You know, I’m taking credit for it because that’s exactly what it’s like. We can get along fine without him for the most part, but it’s not the same.

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : It’s wobbly.

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : Then he comes breezing in with a few half-baked scraps of lyrics for a song we’d abandoned days ago. And people wonder why it takes us years to make an album.

\-----

 **EDGE** : Sharing you with the rest of the world took some getting used to.

 **BONO** : I know, I know. I’m such a slut.

 **EDGE** : I was busy, too. Morleigh and I had two little children running around.

 **BONO** : So did we! Boys. Tiny _thugs_.

 **EDGE** : But we still manage to spend time with each other.

 **BONO** : It's not like we’re coal miners, you know. We have a very easy life.

 **EDGE** : We can take off and write songs together when you have time.

 **BONO** : Oh Reg. I _make_ time for you. Certain aspects of my life are written in stone, and you’re one of them. After being _BonoandEdge_ for so long, it’s easy to become a bit lazy. But our time together is precious because our lives are shared with other people. Sometimes getting together can be a hassle, but that also means we don’t take each other for granted. So it’s always--I’m sorry, Rolling Stone readers, but if you’ve read this far, I think you can take it--it’s always explosive, even if my mind is spinning with AIDS statistics and I don’t know what day it is. And even if Edge arrives bleary-eyed from spending too much time with his guitars and has forgotten how to talk to people.

 **EDGE** : We’re like anybody else. We watch television and eat too much and read have a few drinks and make each other look at stupid cat videos and narrate them with little voices.

 **BONO** : Do one of the little voices.

 **EDGE** : It’s not gonna come across in print.

 **BONO** : Do it for _me_.

 **EDGE** : [little voice] It’s not gonna come across in print.

 **BONO** : Oh my god, you are the fucking _best_. You’re right about the everyday quiet times. I’m a morning person now, and I watch him sleep. He barely even moves. Sometimes I poke him to make sure he’s still alive, and he’ll open his eyes a fraction of a slit and mumble “still alive” and go back to the fourth dimension or orbiting Neptune or whatever he does.

 **EDGE** : In the years following Bob’s death, I noticed a change in Bono. It took him a while to process it, I think, and sometimes I’d get a text from him saying, “Edge. It hit me so hard today.” Or we’d be together and he’d disappear inside his head, his eyes glassy. On some level, it freed him, but...I lost my own father last month. Obviously it’s something you don’t ever really get over.

 **BONO** : Edge. Your father was extraordinary. I know I abuse that word. But I really mean it. He was brilliant and gentle. So much like you. He knew about us.

 **EDGE** : He loved you. As though you were his own son.

\-----

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : Alright. Miraculously, Adam and I and the old married couple managed to write some songs over the course of a few years. Bono’s voice was back. His extracurricular activities were making us marginally less cool, and I hated that whole look he had going on at the time. But we had a huge song, our own iPod, and another tour to prepare for. I couldn’t wait to get back out there.

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : We were telling everyone that this was our first rock record, but looking back at _Atomic Bomb_ , I have to admit that a few of the songs were a little safer--a little middle age-ier--than we’d built them up to be. But the strong songs are…

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : Just _unusually_ strong. It’s like when we really had something, when all the pieces fell into place, wow. We had some new classics on that one.

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : Bono dealt with his complicated feelings about his father in the lyrics. It was a grown-up record in an age that pandered to teenagers more than ever before.

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : We were filming the video for _Sometimes You Can’t Make It On Your Own_ when Edge got the call.

\-----

 **MORLEIGH STEINBERG** : Sian, our little girl, had leukemia. She was only seven. I can’t--

\-----

 **PAUL MCGUINNESS** : What do you even do? You circle the wagons.

\-----

 **ALI HEWSON** : All of us felt Edge’s and Morleigh’s pain acutely. A child--you’re just so helpless.

 **EVE HEWSON** : Dad was absolutely beside himself.

 **ALI HEWSON** : As much as he campaigns on behalf of people in the most desperate situations, this hit incredibly close to home. No. It hit home.

 **EVE HEWSON** : Edge’s family is our family.

\-----

 **MORLEIGH STEINBERG** : How do you think he’d approach this terrible thing? He educated himself on the disease--and quickly--until he was able to converse easily with Sian’s doctors regarding her treatment, and sometimes he even pointed them in the direction of the newest research. He asked the questions that were too troubling for me to even think about. I watched him change from an artist to a true scientist. He was a rock and so perfect with Sian. And me. I have never been more in awe of that man.

\-----

 **EDGE** : We need to talk about Sian.

 **BONO** : You were nothing short of heroic, love.

 **EDGE** : Sian had leukemia and received treatment for it until she was ten, and thankfully she has been cancer-free for years. She was heroic. Morleigh was heroic. I simply did what any father would do. Some evolutionary adaptation must kick in for a parent when their family is in crisis. I went into problem-solving mode and did what I could to support and protect them.

 **BONO** : You are far too modest. You were facing a storm that would bring most people to their knees.

 **EDGE** : Oh, this brought me to my knees.

 **BONO** : I learned so much about how to be a father from you, you know. And if anything like this befalls my family, heaven forbid, I hope I’m a fraction as capable as you were in dealing with it.

 **EDGE** : You certainly saw me at my lowest.

\-----

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : But we went ahead with the tour as planned four or five months later. Sian wanted Edge to do it.

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : That little girl. She said it would be weird if he were just hanging around the house.

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : He was blown away by her courage.

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : It set up a situation that was sort of like what Bono went through with his father’s illness during the Elevation tour. Edge came home to be with her whenever possible, and he was there for her treatments during breaks in the tour.

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : And he was Skyping with Sian and Morleigh every day when he was away, no matter the time zone differences. We postponed the Australian leg so he could help her through the worst of it. And then you had Morleigh taking over when Edge was with us. What a woman.

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : So brave, all of them.

\-----

 **BONO** : Helping you through that was--sometimes I’d think to myself, _This is why I’m here. This is why I exist._

 **EDGE** : What you did helped me more than you can ever know.

 **BONO** : I was honored to do so.

 **EDGE** : He allowed me to not be strong.

 **BONO** : Most nights on the tour, when he wasn’t flying home, we just...left.

 **EDGE** : He was fiercely protective of me. Those shows were exhausting. One of our new songs was written for my daughter Hollie, and another was about dealing with a serious illness. Then watching you sing to your father…all of that wiped me out emotionally.

 **BONO** : I resisted the urge to engage in our usual onstage shenanigans.

 **EDGE** : Whatever. Your latest shtick was to amble over to me and bite my shoulder.

 **BONO** : I guess I did bite you a time or two. You’re just so damned _biteable_ , Edge.

 **EDGE** : My gear was extensive for that tour, and the new songs were complex. I was tethered to my equipment most of the time. As much as I tried to shut everything out during those two hours every night, inevitably Sian’s illness would infiltrate my thoughts. I did my best. But you carried those shows. You really did.

 **BONO** : When a concert ended, I’d hustle you into my car, and we’d go straight to the hotel. No tiresome afterparty meet-and-greet bullshit. Let Adam and Larry deal with that for a change. I made sure nobody bothered you.

 **EDGE** : We got cleaned up somehow. I don’t remember. What I do remember was the dark room and the bed and the curtains open so we could look at the moon.

 **BONO** : I actually threw my weight around a bit to make that happen. I made sure that wherever we stayed--if there was a moon to be seen that night, we’d be on the side of the hotel where we could view it. Or else you and I would stay someplace where we could.

 **EDGE** : I had told Sian to look at the moon every night, and I would, too.

 **BONO** : The moon has always reminded us of our girls.

 **EDGE** : She sent me a drawing she’d made of the earth. I was on one side, and she was on the other. We were both gazing at the moon--she had drawn little dots going from our eyes and out into space. And the moon was smiling down on us.

 **BONO** : You framed that, of course.

 **EDGE** : Obviously. Anyway. We looked at the moon, you held me, and I cried for her. You helped me fall asleep.

 **BONO** : I love you.

 **EDGE** : You let me be weak. And I knew-- _I knew_ \--this man is my best friend. This man is my lover. This man is my husband. This man is my family.


	9. Atomic

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end!
> 
> Well, I suppose I could have just kept writing and making up stuff, but with this chapter we've hit present-day U2 (late May 2016), so I'm basically out of material. I might come back and do those sidebars I mentioned when I started writing this, but don't hold me to that. The fact that I can't put images here is kind of a buzz kill. 
> 
> Thanks again to my miraculous husband for helping me plot this way back in February. He came up with the last thing Larry says, which for a long time was going to be the final sentence in the story. He also had the idea for Edge's last remark when they're on the couch, and the line he says on the phone is a direct quote from my husband. I overheard him saying it last week, and it was so Edge-y it seriously blew my mind. He also contributed various geekery. I can't believe I am married to this wonderful man. Thanks to imaginary Bono and Edge for waking me up at all hours of the night and telling me what to do. Please let me sleep now. 
> 
> I appreciate all of you for reading and commenting and being wonderful to me! Shout-out to fouroux for unwittingly helping me through an "I'm not good enough" crisis last week. Also Choose2Live and spacemonkey are lovely people, and you should read their stories (and also fouroux's) if you haven't already. 
> 
> PS The nine at the end represent every "named" person here who's given me kudos. And Carina is based on a real person. Thank you, my dears. I hope you love this.

_[photo](http://imgur.com/fa5C6Gi) _

_Bono closes his eyes and inhales, a small smile on his face as he mouths, “I love you.” He looks up at Edge, removes his sunglasses, and rubs the bridge of his nose before replacing them._

\-----

 **BONO** : Christ, how long have we been talking, anyway?

 **EDGE** : About two, two and a half hours.

 **BONO** : And we still have ten more years to cover?

 **EDGE** : We don’t have to talk about everything.

 **BONO** : We haven’t even mentioned Spider-Man.

 **EDGE** : Again, we don’t have to talk about everything.

\-----

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : The less said about the Spider-Man fiasco the better.

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : Agreed.

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : [nods]

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : It was Bono and Edge at their _BonoandEdge_ -iest.

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : [laughs]

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : Self-indulgent, over-confident, money- and time-wasting bullshit.

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : Anything else you’d like to add? Don’t hold back.

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : Plus it was a stupid idea.

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : There were many reasons why we didn’t get involved.

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : Who writes a fucking musical about a bloody comic book character in the first place? ...Excuse me for a second.

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : You’re coming back, right?

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : I’m just gonna go outside and scream at the trees for a while.

\-----

 **MORLEIGH STEINBERG** : Well, I’ve created some pretty out-there choreography, but that Spider-Man thing was exceptionally hard to get behind.

\-----

 **EVE HEWSON** : I was like, “Dad, I’m trying to be an actress in this town!”

\-----

 **BONO** : There may have been some drink involved. The idea for the show was bandied about in 2002, I believe...and you know me, Edge. I can never say no.

 **EDGE** : I’ve been the beneficiary of that tendency of yours more than a few times.

 **BONO** : Absolutely you have.

 **EDGE** : But this was your baby. I was mainly just along for the ride.

 **BONO** : Distancing yourself from the project, are you, love? Writing the material for the show was easy for us initially. Much easier than, say, trying to build a hippie compound on a pretty so-what hill in Malibu.

 **EDGE** : Excuse me.

\-----

_Bono sits up as Edge rises and walks across the room to the chessboard. “What are they having you do now, Reg?” Bono calls to him. “Cover it with gravel and a variety of indigenous shrubs? So as not to offend the locals who might be out surfing or something?” Edge glances at the chessboard, moves a bishop, and returns to the couch._

\-----

 **BONO** : Did you move your bishop?

 **EDGE** : Yes.

 **BONO** : Oh, that was misguided, Edge.

\-----

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : After the Vertigo tour, we had a low-key year or so.

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : Any country that had the ability to make Bono a knight of some kind did so.

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : I think he may be two different kinds of French knights, if that’s possible.

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : I wouldn’t put it past them.

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : It’s sort of disturbing to be in a band that’s receiving lifetime achievement awards and getting nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize and being handed honorary degrees and other old-people honors left and right when you’re only in your forties.

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : It’s lovely to be appreciated for your work, but these things tend to go hand-in-hand with an underlying “can you guys be done now?” vibe.

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : We were entering uncharted territory as a band. How do you maintain relevance? How do you age gracefully?

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : You are the wrong person to be asking that question, Larry. You clearly know the answer.

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : The answer is Fez. You go to Fez. Because _of course you do._

\-----

_Bono shoots Edge a “still friends?” glance before tentatively returning to his previous position with his head resting on Edge’s lap. Edge lifts a hand and makes the international “I will tickle you if you don’t watch it” gesture. Bono laughs and squirms._

\-----

 **BONO** : Let’s talk about Fez.

 **EDGE** : It seemed like something Led Zeppelin would do.

 **BONO** : I mean, let’s act like a supergroup for once and take our top producers to fucking Morocco for a couple of weeks and soak up the romantic atmosphere and get inspired. [mumbles] And laid.

 **EDGE** : It was glorious. Beginning a new album always fills me with such hope. When the music comes it’s like hearing wind through the trees for the first time in the spring when they finally have leaves again. Your voice sounded incredible bouncing off those walls.

 **BONO** : My singing voice?

 **EDGE** : Sure.

 **BONO** : We stayed at a dreamy riad with an open-air courtyard where we set up shop during the day and these dark, sumptuous rooms to play in at night.

 **EDGE** : Every conceivable surface was covered with geometric patterns.

 **BONO** : It brought out a few of your more _Rain Man_ -like tendencies at first.

 **EDGE** : I had to actively force myself to ignore them.

 **BONO** : I think I provided a nice distraction.

 **EDGE** : You did.

 **BONO** : I had recently commemorated our fifteenth anniversary by cutting my hair, you see.

 **EDGE** : You exquisite, evil thing.

 **BONO** : We were so happy to be there. The angle of the sun was higher in the sky, but not punishingly so. And early one morning I woke to a naked Edge standing on our balcony and singing with the birds. “Sunshine, sunshine--” I can’t sing it the way he does.

 **EDGE** : You’re a little hoarse from all the talking today.

 **BONO** : But it was beautiful and pure, and that became part of the record.

 **EDGE** : Our strange daughter.

 **BONO** : Yes. If _No Line on the Horizon_ were a child, she’d be an art student, we decided. And she was forced to wear a uniform she hated.

 **EDGE** : The uniform was the three songs in the middle. We knew our girl was weird, and we thought she needed some more mainstream songs to sort of normalize her. We thought those might have been hits, but…

 **BONO** : They were not hits.

 **EDGE** : We should have just let her be herself. But at the same time, we were busy making a monster.

\-----

 **EVE HEWSON** : I heard them fighting once. On the phone. It was hilarious.

 **ALI HEWSON** : What were they fighting about?

 **EVE HEWSON** : I guess Dad had emailed Edge some lyrics he’d been working on. He was really happy with them and was singing them to me when his phone rang. And Edge just goes, “NO.” So loud I could hear him even though he wasn’t on speaker.

 **ALI HEWSON** : Okay, I think I remember this.

 **EVE HEWSON** : And Dad’s like, “What the hell, Edge, this is a good song.” Edge yells, “It’s not an ATM machine! The M in ATM means ‘machine,’ so what you’re saying is ‘automated teller machine machine,’ and this kind of bullshit does not happen on my watch!”

 **ALI HEWSON** : Yes! That’s the one.

 **EVE HEWSON** : So Dad looks at me in disbelief and hangs up. He huffs around for a second or two and then he calls Edge back. “Well what the fuck am I supposed to do then, genius? Just cut it off at ATM and stand there humming like an idiot because nothing else fits there, Edge. _Nothing else fits_.” And Edge goes, “ _Fight me_.” Dad’s like, “Oh you wanna go, Edge? Name the time and the place.” I’m totally cracking up, and they’re silently fuming, and then Dad’s laughing, and Edge is too, and it was seriously the best fight ever.

 **ALI HEWSON** : Your father got his way eventually.

 **EVE HEWSON** : But I swear Edge winced every time that line came up. He was supposed to sing “machine” along with Dad, but as far as I know he never did. [ _The song in question is_ Moment of Surrender _, which Rolling Stone named Best Song of 2009. We cannot confirm Eve’s claim that Edge did not sing “machine” during U2’s 360 tour. -- Ed._ ]

\-----

 **BONO** : We were building a spaceship. You know, kind of.

 **EDGE** : The album received mixed reviews, and that’s like, whatever, but radio was not embracing the singles. So that was a nervous spring as we made promotional appearances and rehearsed for a tour that was starting to display all the hallmarks of another Popmart.

 **BONO** : _Popmart 2: Revenge of Popmart._

 **EDGE** : Bono kept telling me, “I wanna see it. I wanna see it.” So I arranged for a little getaway a few days after his birthday.

 **BONO** : They were constructing the steel framework for the claw, as we started calling it, in a small town in Belgium, and I was so curious to see it for myself. I had looked at photos and videos, of course, but you can never truly appreciate the scale of something like that unless you’re there in person. So Edge took my person and his person to...Werkster?

 **EDGE** : Werchter. It’s about an hour’s drive from Brussels. Three thousand people, something like that. The sun was setting, and we were in the car eating frites--

 **BONO** : Holy shit I could eat those every day of my entire fucking life.

 **EDGE** : And you nearly choked on one when you saw that--thing--looming over those ordinary little houses and businesses.

 **BONO** : Part Eiffel tower and part _Close Encounters of the Third Kind_ mothership.

 **EDGE** : And that spider-eye robot from _Jonny Quest_. You know?

 **BONO** : I'm afraid I don't. (Geek.) This was just the skeleton. We had our driver deliver us to the site, and our security team gave him an appropriately hard time until Edge rolled down his window and waved.

 **EDGE** : Then you chimed in with, “We wanna see our thing!” and the proverbial red carpet was rolled out for us.

 **BONO** : We signed autographs and took photos in exchange for complete privacy, and--god, I remember this like it was yesterday--we walked toward it. And damn if that fucker wasn’t ten times larger once we were underneath it. Remember what you said to me?

 **EDGE:** After, “Shit, it’s way too big”?

 **BONO** : Yes.

 **EDGE:** Hmm...what did I say?

 **BONO** : “Positively no climbing.”

 **EDGE** : We were both stupefied. He had come up with the concept for the structure one night by clumsily holding four forks together and saying, “All our gear goes up on top.” Suddenly we were seeing that simple idea substantially larger than just a handful of forks.

 **BONO** : It was unreal. We walked around it for a while, from foot to foot, imagining all that would be added later and wondering how in the world we might perform under it. It became creepier as the sky darkened. And then you stole a plastic tarp from somewhere and spread it on the ground directly beneath the center. We lay down on our backs and stared up at the circle that opened to the sky, and you asked, “Who _are_ we?”

 **EDGE** : And you said we were obviously stuffed toys kids try to pick up with a claw in those arcade games, and if the claw grabbed me you were fully prepared to cling to my legs and come along with me.

 **BONO** : But that was a good question, Edge. Who are we? What kind of jobs do we have, what kind of lives do we lead that would enable us to build not one but three of those giant contraptions? Just so people could see us better?

 **EDGE:** Right? Four middle-aged Irishmen who aren’t particularly interesting.

 **BONO** : Speak for yourself, Reg.

 **EDGE:** Still: insanity.

 **BONO** : Yeah. Plus our album was tanking. The nerve of us!

 **EDGE** : We quieted down and watched the stars come out. You hummed _Space Oddity_ , and we sang bits and pieces of it together.

 **BONO** : You were still in a contemplative mood, though. You'd been in a contemplative mood for a _while._

 **EDGE** : Sian's illness gave me a new perspective on what matters. It really has colored everything I've thought or done from then on.

 **BONO** : You know, it's true. You beautiful man. We were lying there, and you looked at me and said, “God’s okay with us, you know.” I kissed you and said, “The god I believe in has to be okay with us. Otherwise, I’m out. I'm done with religion.”

\-----

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : The 360 tour was an incredible yet humbling and fucking endless time for us. The crowds were a mixture of die-hard fans and bucket-list people. “Oh, U2 is in town? I guess I should see them before they retire.” We sold out every stadium, but they weren’t necessarily filled to the brim with fans who loved us.

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : Try as we might, the new songs weren’t connecting, and as the setlist evolved, well, it was survival of the fittest. One by one, the new songs dropped away until just a few remained. So that was a disappointment.

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : We tried to make it as intimate an experience as we could, and there were times when the claw seemed to disappear, but fuck, the amount of territory you guys patrolled was unprecedented.

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : You know what would have helped? We should have put your drum kit on that outer catwalk and had it move you around its entire circumference.

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : That sounds totally doable and cheap at twice the price.

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : Put a pin in it. A little idea for our next tour. But you’re right about the impossible task Bono, Edge, and I had in front of us every night. No matter where I was onstage, I felt like I needed to be somewhere else. We all wanted everyone to get their money’s worth.

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : Yeah, if the three of you were in a cluster I’d find myself thinking, “Spread out, you guys. Those people over there can’t see you at all.”

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : So those Bono and Edge moments were limited. Most of the time if Bono was at two o’clock, Edge was at ten.

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : I liked the bit where they reached out to each other from those rotating bridges, though.

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : Did that turn you on, Larry?

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : You’d better believe it. Just the hottest thing in the world.

\-----

 **BONO** : A production like that one had a truly obscene daily budget, so you’ll understand why I was hesitant to raise my hand about a year into it to say, “Ehm, my back is literally fucking killing me and also I can’t feel one of my legs.”

 **EDGE** : Thus began yet another Bono Health Scare.

 **BONO** : I had just turned fifty years old, to add insult to injury. So. Emergency surgery in Munich, eight weeks of rehabilitation, a bevy of rescheduled tour dates. All of this cost us several hundred dollars, I believe, Edge…?

 **EDGE** : I think it was around 275 dollars.

 **BONO** : My doctors were Edgelike geniuses, and I was astonished by how quickly I felt better. You were with me every step of the way, of course.

 **EDGE** : Of course. Ali and I were terribly worried and emotional during your surgery, but your doctors put our minds at ease. You were going to be fine.

 **BONO** : You’ve never had a broken bone, have you, Reg? You've never been anything other than the picture of health.

 **EDGE** : Except for that time on the bus when we were barely out of our teens--when I was suffering from the flu I'm pretty sure you gave me--I have been in championship form my entire life.

 **BONO** : Motherfucking cyborg.

 **EDGE** : The tour, which had become a well-oiled machine, fell into chaos immediately, of course. But it was kind of worth it to visit you in the recovery room, lying there face-down--

 **BONO** : Just the way you like me.

 **EDGE:** \--with your head in one of those donut things.

 **BONO** : Just the way you like me.

 **EDGE:** I got down on the floor so I could see your face as you came out of the anesthesia.

 **BONO** : I remember none of this.

 **EDGE:** You were singing a little song! “Edge you are my love, Ali you are my love, Edge and Ali Edge and Ali Edge and Ali and me.”

 **BONO** : Just totally making this up.

 **EDGE** : And that song went on to become _Cedarwood Road,_ of course.

 **BONO** : Such a liar!

\----

_Bono grabs Edge’s neck and pulls him down, and the two engage in kittenish play-fighting for a few seconds._

\-----

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : We gave ourselves time to recover after the 360 tour.

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : Plenty of time. Several years passed, completely unaccounted for.

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : Entire summers, pissed away.

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : Some of them were peppered with the occasional recording session that went nowhere.

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : Bono gave TED talks, Edge got involved with angiogenesis...

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : As one does.

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : I made a couple of movies.

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : As one does.

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : And you got married!

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : I had nothing else going on. Joke. _Joke!_ I am kidding, Mariana.

\-----

 **MORLEIGH STEINBERG** : The down time between their albums became longer and longer, and while the children and I were delighted that Edge was home with us, I could tell he was frustrated. We sleep with a white noise machine on, but sometimes a repetitious chiming sound would infiltrate it, and I’d hear it in my dreams before it woke me up. His side of the bed would be vacant. I’d find him in that so-called soundproof mini-studio of his. He’d be deep inside his head, playing the same chords over and over, writing things down, and searching for the elusive micro-variation that would satisfy him. I’d bring him a snack or tea or some breakfast-y thing and watch him work for a while. He’d apologize for waking me up and the tediousness of whatever little pattern he was obsessing over. But he knows I get it. I’m the same way. Having a front row seat to his creative process is truly a gift.

\-----

 **ALI HEWSON** : You were spared your father’s creative block a few years ago.

 **EVE HEWSON** : No I wasn’t! I got texts and phone calls from him all the time when I was asleep. I’d go, “Jesus, Dad, you’re five hours ahead of me. The math is not that hard.” I think he just wanted a break from the blank page.

 **ALI HEWSON** : “Ali. Ali. Ali. Ali. Ali. Ali.” _What._ “Which sounds better: You can’t see me but you will or You don’t see me but you will? Can’t or don’t?” _Don’t._ “See I think that’s better, too.” _Don’t as in don’t wake me up with questions about semantics,_ my darling _._

\-----

 **BONO** : We had some good melodies stored up, but lyrically we were in trouble with _Songs of Innocence_ \--by early 2014 we didn’t even have that title or general concept yet. I didn’t know where to begin. With _No Line_ , I had attempted to write from the perspectives of different characters because who wants to hear more from me? That went over like a lead balloon, so I was lost.

 **EDGE** : Lost in the weeds.

 **BONO** : The weeds are really tall.

 **EDGE** : Oh, they’re not that tall.

 **BONO** : I woke up on Easter morning before anyone else in the house, and I wandered down to the kitchen. Eli and John had made it abundantly clear to Ali and myself that they were much too cool for a visit from the Easter Bunny, but they had nevertheless trashed the place with some late-night egg dyeing. Colored eggs and cups of dye and markers were everywhere. I cleaned things up and got ready to confront my blank notebook once again.

 **EDGE** : You cleaned things up?

 **BONO** : Sort of. Whatever, Edge. I found myself idly spinning a green egg on the table. And because whenever I look at an egg I think of your gigantic head, love, I grabbed a marker and drew an Edge face on it, beanie and everything. I held it up and asked, “What the fuck should I write about, The Egg?” Egg-You looked at me with that infuriatingly placid expression of yours, and then I thought, “I should write about Edge. I should write about _us_.”

 **EDGE** : Text. “Edge, you up?” _Always._ “I need to call you. Right now if you can talk.” _Sure_. “Happy Easter incidentally.” _He is risen, B_.

 **BONO** : I had never been so inspired. “Let’s tell our story on the next album, Edge!”

 **EDGE** : “The story of our band?”

 **BONO** : “Yes, but also the story of us.”

 **EDGE** : “Are you sure?”

 **BONO** : “It’s time. Let’s really tell it.”

 **EDGE** : It turned into a two-part story, and the more we talked about it, the more we liked the idea of rolling this out slowly. Two albums. _Before Us_ and _After Us_. You’ve already heard _Before Us_.

 **BONO** : Whether you’ve wanted to or not.

 **EDGE** : This interview marks the beginning of the next phase.

 **BONO** : This is the backstory for _Songs of Experience_.

\-----

 **PAUL MCGUINNESS** : I was overjoyed when they told me their plans. Finally.

\-----

 **GUY OSEARY** (U2’s manager after Paul McGuinness retired, via Skype): Paul handed me the keys to the U2 car in late 2013. I felt like I was in one of those movies where the new President of the United States takes the oath of office and is informed about what really goes on in Area 51 and the truth behind the JFK assassination. Many performers have skeletons in their closets that are truly formidable and disheartening for a manager to deal with. The fact that U2’s most closely-guarded secret was a unique and heartwarming love story that has endured for decades really speaks volumes about them as people. I was honored that they trusted me to help them bring it out into the open.

We’ve made a few missteps along the way, but everything we’ve done over the past couple of years, including the band’s increased presence on social media, has been part of a concerted effort to get the public to view them as real people. I’ll always push for more of that. They may be rock stars, but they’re not too big for Instagram. This interview is a giant step for the band, of course. They’ve always tried to remain relevant and attract a younger audience. I wouldn’t be surprised if at least part of the generation that resented U2 for giving them free music ends up embracing Bono and Edge for being candid about their relationship. This interview, the new album, and the next tour may become the very things that attract the people who have resisted U2 the most.

\-----

 **MORLEIGH STEINBERG** : They belong together. It's as simple as that. They're beautiful, and I love them both very much. What else is there to say?

\-----

 **EVE HEWSON** : I’m so proud of them. And you and Morleigh. Having to keep this a secret made me sad.

 **ALI HEWSON** : We’ve tried to keep our private lives private, and that’s fine. But there’s a difference between privacy and secrecy. Secrecy is a burden, and I’m sorry you’ve all had to bear that as you’ve grown up.

 **EVE HEWSON** : We understand. I’m just happy it’s over.

 **ALI HEWSON** : It’s also just begun.

 **EVE HEWSON** : Are you worried about people’s reactions?

 **ALI HEWSON** : It’ll take some getting used to, but I have the luxury of laying low for a while if I want. I hope you, Jordan, and the boys will be okay. We have to expect some negative blowback from this.

 **EVE HEWSON** : Mom, my dad is _Bono_. I’m used to dealing with everybody’s negative blowback.

 **ALI HEWSON** : And how do you do that?

 **EVE HEWSON** : It depends on the situation, but I usually go with sweetness and a bit of sarcasm. And I have his eyes.

 **ALI HEWSON** : Right.

 **EVE HEWSON** : Sometimes I’ll just stare them down [stares at Ali].

 **ALI HEWSON** : I’ve never seen you lose a staring contest, now that I think about it.

 **EVE HEWSON** : With great power comes great responsibility.

 **ALI HEWSON** : That fucking musical.

 **EVE HEWSON** : This'll be a breeze in comparison.

\-----

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : Relieved?

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : Yes. Prepared to become even more marginalized within this band?

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : At least people will be talking about something other than the Apple debacle now. Or Bono’s bike accident.

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : Did those get covered by anyone else in this interview? ...No? ...We have to do that now?

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : Oh for god’s sake.

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : Bono’s bike accident--totally sucked. Apple debacle--also sucked. Is that okay with you guys? Because that’s all you’re getting. Any other questions? ...What’s that? ...You want to know if anything’s going on between Adam and me? You want to know if we’re in love, too? What the fuck, people.

 **ADAM CLAYTON** : That’s a fair question, Larry. Are we innocent, or are we experienced?

 **LARRY MULLEN JR** : Jesus Christ. Either way, it’s nobody’s fucking business.

\-----

 **EDGE** : Another reason why we’re doing this now is...we’ve lost some very important people within the U2 family and music in general recently.

 **BONO** : David Bowie and Prince. Both irreplaceable. Bowie was such a hero to us and a true icon. I don’t know if I’ll ever get over his passing. And Prince: I won’t presume to call him a contemporary. I can’t even bring myself to listen to his music yet. Just thinking about them…my god.

 **EDGE** : And you. We nearly lost you.

 **BONO** : Oh, you’re not getting rid of me that easily.

 **EDGE** : But since then it’s made me wonder-- _what if_...? We’ve been hidden in plain sight for all these years. I want the man I love--I want _us_ \--to tell our story, not someone else after we're gone.

 **BONO** : I want that, too.

\-----

_Bono eyes the device that has been recording their every word. “Mission accomplished?” he asks it. Edge smiles and stifles a yawn. Bono stands, his face a silent roar as he yawns and stretches extravagantly. “Think anybody’s out there?” he asks Edge._

_“I was playing some music on the balcony this morning, and a few people came around. So they know we’re here.”_

_“Let’s give them a little show. What do you say?”_

_I follow Bono and Edge through a sliding door that leads to a balcony with a view of the beach that is now decorated with dramatic, late afternoon shadows. “They're waiting for us to mess up and play the new album so they can record it and post it online,” Bono says with a grin. “We’re not gonna do that today. Edge, what shall we use to summon them?”_

_Edge plugs his phone into a player equipped with a set of frighteningly large speakers, and he scrolls through his music looking for a song. Bono smiles at him. “Usually when we come out here, three fighter jets fly overhead trailing the colors of the Irish flag, but I don’t see them right now. We’ll just have to make do.”_ Atomic _by Blondie begins playing loudly, and Bono cackles. “This is one of_ our songs _!” he yells at me._

_He joins Edge at the balcony railing, and within thirty seconds, nine U2 fans materialize. Bono and Edge wave at them as Debbie Harry’s celebratory, siren-like voice draws them closer. Nine phones bloom like sunflowers, and nine jaws drop as Edge takes Bono’s face in his hands and gives him an unambiguous, lingering kiss. Bono’s arms encircle Edge’s waist, and the two beam at each other and embrace. Clearly delighted, Bono kisses Edge’s hand, and, because he can now, his neck. They wave goodbye to their screaming audience and head inside, where they laugh hysterically._

_Meanwhile nine videos, each approximately one minute in length, are already being frantically uploaded to Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and Tumblr as Debbie reaches the song’s bridge, effectively scooping this interview a week before it can be published._

_Gasping for air, Bono drops to his knees, saying, “Holy shit, Edge, we did it, we did it, we did it,” while Edge gapes at him for the duration of the song._

_“Oh my fucking god.”_

_“I thought I was more than merely your fucking god, Reg, but I’ll take it.”_

_Edge smiles and shakes his head before sneaking back onto the balcony to retrieve his phone. I excuse myself to make a rather urgent call to Rolling Stone, and when I return they are both on their phones._

_“...Everything okay over there, love? … Oh, she did? How wonderful. … Did you get the flowers? …”_

_“...Wait, that's not extrapolation. It's interpolation…”_

_A few moments later they decide a food run is in order--”We can’t just give her a couple of macarons and send her on her way”--and Edge volunteers to head into Eze. “_ _Ask Mlle Rousseau for more of those divine little strawberries,” Bono says. “And anything else she thinks we ought to have, of course.”_

_Edge leaves, and soon Bono is monitoring the beach situation. “One of them is still out there. Look,” he says, and through a kitchen window we spy on an attractive young blonde who is sitting on a rock facing the house. She appears to be drawing on a pad of paper. “Let’s go say hello.”_

\-----

 **BONO** : And what is your name, my dear? Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.

 **FAN** : Oh my god. Um. Carina?

 **BONO** : This is Elle. She’s from Rolling Stone. They’re doing a little puff piece on the Edge and myself.

 **CARINA** : Hi…

 **BONO** : Do you mind if I...wow, you’re drawing our house? It’s awfully good.

 **CARINA** : I’m not really an artist--I just--my phone was dead when you and Edge--um--and I wanted to--oh my god I love your music--

 **BONO** : Look at those extraordinary brown eyes of yours. And that accent. You came here all the way from Australia?

 **CARINA** : Guilty.

 **BONO** : We need to get back down there. You shouldn’t have to come all this way just to see us.

 **CARINA** : Please do!

 **BONO** : So if you’re not really an artist, what are you?

 **CARINA** : I’m a writer.

 **BONO** : Of…? 

 **CARINA** : Love stories?

 **BONO** : Oh my.

 **CARINA** : Holy shit. Sorry. Um, would you mind signing…?

\-----

 _Carina closes her notebook. On the front is a reproduction of_ No Line On the Horizon’ _s serene seascape cover. She hands Bono her pen._

\-----

 **BONO** : Of course. This does not appear to be official U2 merchandise, Carina.

 **CARINA** : Haha, sorry. I just adore that picture. It calms me down.

 **BONO** : Me too. C-A-R-I-N-A?

 **CARINA** : Yes! Thank you so much!

\-----

_Bono turns the notebook sideways and writes her name. Then he smiles and draws John Lennon-esque doodles of himself on the water side of the image and Edge on the sky side while Carina asks a few questions._

\-----

 **CARINA** : So are you and Edge…?

 **BONO** : Yes.

 **CARINA** : But the two of you are…?

 **BONO** : Yes.

 **CARINA** : And they’re okay with…?

 **BONO** : Yes. You’ll be able to read all about it very soon. I hope it won’t change your mind about us.

 **CARINA** : No, it’s amazing. And nothing you could do would make me love you any less.

\-----

_I assure Carina she will love them even more after reading what they have to say. Bono draws a heart around his Edge and Bono caricatures, and then he scrawls “L’amour” on the notebook along with his name. He grins and forges Edge’s name alongside his own._

\-----

 **BONO** : I’m afraid Edge is out getting groceries, love. But you have our permission to say he was here.

 **CARINA** : [admires his handiwork and wipes away a tear] I...love this.

 **BONO** : [hugs her] And you can tell everyone he was the most beautiful creature. Cheekbones for days, gentle voice, darling wrinkles around his eyes.

 **CARINA** : Thank you so much, Bono.

 **BONO** : Tell them he is clearly a genius.

 **CARINA** : Of course.

 **BONO** : And you couldn’t help falling in love with him.

 **CARINA** : Oh my god.

\-----

_Bono walks back to the house, singing “I can’t help falling in love with you” several times. He turns to wave at Carina before opening the door._


End file.
